Chapter Three--Macro

Chapter Three

My survival depended on learning the routine as quickly as possible. The early mornings gradually became bearable. Morning duty was actually the best shift. It involved the least amount of labor and minimal interaction with people. Gina taught me how to make morning tea for the ill—a tonic of mashed pickled plums, kudzu powder and a dash of soy sauce covered by tea. It tasted vile but it pleased me to be able to make something that could help people.

All the food had been deemed helpful. Each rule was based on the principles of George Ohsawa, the founder of macrobiotics. I had assumed the food followed basic vegetarian principles but I was mistaken. Arla left a pile of books by my bedside, a not-too-subtle hint that I needed to study up. But the more I learned, the less I understood the reasoning behind it. Some foods were yin and some were yang and the books said that balance was key. But macrobiotics involved taking out the extreme yin (tropical fruit, dairy, sugar and booze) as well as the extreme yang (eggs and meat) leaving only the boring stuff in the middle.

Why eat this way? For the guests who came to visit, the choice was clear—they were suffering from some sort of disease. Some had big diseases like cancer, others had chronic conditions like fatigue, depression or digestive disorders. I thought of each guest by their condition—it was easier than learning their names—and all they wanted to talk about. Perfect health was the Holy Grail and Hideo was the Keeper of the Mysteries. Macrobiotics would cure them; they were certain of it. I envied their faith.
For the first week, I ate in the main dining room with the guests. The staff kitchen existed on the fringes of my awareness, a secret land of camaraderie and snacks that I had not earned the right to enter yet. And I had nothing to prove to the guests. They acted like I was the luckiest person alive to have the chance to work here and soak up Hideo's wisdom on a daily basis. They were temporary and I was staff. All I had to do to fit in with them was smile and commiserate over the awkwardness of using chopsticks to the endless quantities of brown rice that graced every meal. At least it was familiar, although stickier than the kind I had eaten before I came to Aurora. When I set up the dining room for dinner. I wrote the menu on the blackboard next to the long buffet table where the food was arranged. Every day, so many foods I had never heard of—tempeh, taro, burdock, seitan—but always at the bottom, I printed in neat, rounded letters, Pressure Cooked Brown Rice.

The other foods often gave me pause. Even the most zealous of guests looked askance at the seaweeds. Macrobiotics, I had learned, was based on proportions. Grains made up 50-60 percent of the diet, vegetables 25-30 percent, beans and bean products 10 percent, soups 5 percent and sea vegetables 5 percent. Five percent seemed small but the sea vegetables loomed large on my plate at each meal. Maybe other people wouldn’t have noticed if I skipped the seaweed but I couldn't take the chance that someone was watching so I spooned a little mound of it on my plate at each meal.

I had eaten sushi before so I was accustomed to nori, the thin greenish-black sheets used to wrap maki rolls. But there were so many other kinds. Inky-black hijiki, paper-thin green wakame, sea palm with its elasticity and disturbingly ribbed fronds. I could never be sure where seaweeds would show up, sometimes by themselves but other times tucked into soups and grain dishes. The taste wasn’t always objectionable but the texture made it hard to swallow. Like everything else we ate, it required a lot of chewing.

Chewing was crucial to the people of Aurora. I had always been a gulp-it-and-go kind of girl, never giving much thought to how I chewed food. But food at Aurora was slow food, hours to prepare and hours to eat. At first, when I saw everyone eating so reverently, I assumed it was out of respect. Arla set me straight.

“You swallow too fast,” she said as we munched our way through brown rice and wakame seaweed mixed with julienned carrots.

“I’m supposed to swallow slowly?”

“No, chew more. Twenty times each bite. It gives your mouth time to release digestive acids and it creates less work for your intestines and bowels.”

I concentrated on chewing. Twenty times was a lot, by the third mouthful my jaw ached. I kept right on masticating, determined not to let Arla see any sign of weakness. She knelt at the table, legs folded, back straight, chewing contentedly as a cow.

If I had a fork, I would have cleaned my plate in ten minutes and been off to smoke a ciggie. Instead, I sat quiet, wrestled with my chopsticks and dutifully chewed. The food turned liquid in my mouth, it nearly made me queasy, but I sipped my tea, held my chopsticks straight, and endured. It was, I reminded myself, much easier to chew brown rice than to give head for countless hours.
My first week at Aurora had passed quickly. I had spent so much time learning to adjust and to fit in that I had barely had time to miss my old life or to worry about the future. Exhaustion was my prescription for oblivion. Friday arrived and the weekly guests departed, leaving the staff alone for the weekend. While Gina and I washed the dishes from the last cooking class, she waxed rhapsodic about the joys of weekends without guests.

“No one has to do extra work. We make our own meals and we can take the center’s van to the next town over to see a movie.”

“Sounds like fun,” I said with forced enthusiasm. The idea of mingling with normal society scared me. My daily jaunts into town to buy chocolates and coffee were just quick errands; I didn’t linger in the stores and restaurants. As alien as Aurora was, it still felt like safe haven. Strange towns had their own dangers. I could be recognized. It had only happened once or twice in Los Angeles—the men who would come up to me and say, ‘I know you’ with a secretive leer.

At Aurora, life was simple—eat the food, wash the dishes, give in to the routine. The week had passed quickly as I struggled to make the unfamiliar seem normal. One week in a six-month stint. And now a weekend and the prospect of discovering a whole different side of Aurora.

I helped the last of the visitors into their taxis. With the guests gone, Aurora became less like a hotel and more like a house. My home. Hideo and Murata were gone for the weekend, spending their free time at their cottage up the street. The staff was alone with no buffers.

As I walked back down the hallway, my fingertips drummed against my sides. At least Doug would have told me what to do with the spare minutes. After five years together, I had become accustomed to taking my cues from him. The lack of distractions was already making me feel antsy.

For the first time in a week, I heard music. The thumping vibration of techno was coming from a door a few doors down from mine. I knocked on the door and Ethan poked his head out.

“Too loud?’

“No. Is that Orb?” I thought longingly of Doug’s encyclopedic CD collection. A song for every mood.

He nodded. “Carolyn takes a tai chi class on Friday afternoons. My only chance to really turn it up is whenever she isn’t here.”

“It must be tough for her, being the oldest one here.”

“For me too. I’m the youngest. At least I was.” He cocked his head, red hair falling over one eye, waiting for me to take the bait and tell him my age. “You should come to the Farmers' Market with me and Henry tomorrow. We’re buying stuff for your welcome party.”

“Is it supposed to be a surprise?” No one had told me about a welcome party. I was both charmed by the gesture and scared of the performance that any sort of party required.

“Everyone gets a party.” He made it seem perfunctory. Another Aurora tradition.

I still hadn’t met Henry. He had a room at the end of the hall, but our paths had never crossed. Once or twice I had seen his tall, hunch-shouldered silhouette down at the other end of the center, headphones on his ears, lost to the world. Yet, he had been the man I saw talking to Hideo down by the river, and Arla told me that he had been at the center for two years, the longest stay of anyone. “Wouldn't Henry mind if I came along?” I asked.

“We’re leaving at six.” He shrugged, which seemed to indicate that neither one of them would care much whether I showed up or not.

I had nothing to lose by going. It could be an adventure, and spending a morning with Ethan and Henry seemed preferable to wandering around the center, wondering what to do with myself.

I opened the door to my room. Arla was in bed reading The Big Book of Colon Health. Arla had much interest in the area of elimination. And many opinions on the proper methodology of an action that I thought should mainly be left to chance and privacy. The discussion on poop at the breakfast table was not an isolated incident. Arla frequently talked about the way the body processed food, not sparing any unappetizing details. She believed nothing should be held in, burps and other releases should be encouraged. I learned to sleep with my face next to the window, enjoying the welcome relief of outside air.

“Colon health?” I said by way of conversation.

“Did you know that meat takes twice as long to digest as grains? Think of how much faster our bodies eliminate things because we eat macrobiotically.” Arla’s eyes were wide with the thought of all that extra digestion time saved.

“Ethan invited me to the Farmers’ Market tomorrow morning.”

“The Saturday morning boys routine. I went once and they barely spoke to me. Not that Henry speaks much anyway, except to Ethan.”

“What's Henry's story?”

“We don't gossip here, you’ll have to ask him yourself. I’m sure you’ll have a good time tomorrow.” Arla went back to her book, clearly more interested in the care and feeding of the large intestine than anything I might have to say.

I woke at dawn excited about seeing a little more of the area surrounding Aurora. In one week, I had become familiar with the river and the local stores within walking distance. My car had remained in the lot. No one had forbidden me to leave the center but I had been afraid to go. Two hours without me and they might decide they didn’t like or need me.

No boring jeans this morning. I put on a yellow floral-patterned sundress. No bra either and the most fun underwear I had brought with me, daisy-printed bikinis. In my dress and strappy sandals, I felt light as air. Just the barest touch of makeup—mascara and lip gloss—also lifted my spirits. I skipped up the hallway, nearly bumping into Gina in my haste.

“Sorry,” I whispered, mindful of the fact that others still slept. Gina had come from the shower, her hair was braided into a thick coil on top of her head and she was still in her bathrobe.

When I got to the staff kitchen, Henry and Ethan were waiting. They looked at me in a way that made me glad there were no other women around. The drabness of the past week was forgotten. I almost wanted to twirl and show them how the skirt of the dress belled out against my legs but I restrained myself.

“Let's go,” I said, bouncing on my heels.

“Don’t you need a sweater or something? It’s chilly there in the morning before the fog burns off.” Ethan wore a faded concert T-shirt but carried a windbreaker over one arm.

I shook my head, the brushy tip of my ponytail sweeping the back of my neck. It was my first chance to wear a cute outfit all week and I was not going to spoil it with a bulky jacket.

“You can borrow mine if you need to.” Henry's voice was high-pitched and squeaky, as if it had gone rusty with disuse. Such a light voice for someone so tall. At nearly six feet five, he towered over Ethan and me.

“I saw Gina in the hallway, is she coming with?” The three of us alone seemed too good to be true.

“She goes to Mass on Saturday mornings,” answered Ethan.

Mass. For a moment, I felt guilty, the reflex of my Catholic girlhood. It had been years since I darkened the doors of a church and the thought of returning seemed impossible. My own actions had doomed me to eternal damnation and a communion wafer would probably turn to ash in my mouth.

We went out to the van. Henry slid into the driver’s seat and Ethan got in on the passenger side, consigning me to the backseat. I got in the back but refused to sit in the seat. Instead, I wedged myself halfway in between the two front seats.

“I guess you won’t be wearing your seatbelt,” said Henry. I looked over to see if he was angry but his aristocratic profile was smooth. I glanced over at Ethan but he was already busy fiddling with the radio.

I leaned back a little and checked out the landscape passing by. Browned-out grass and parched earth as far as the eye could see. The next big town was almost twenty minutes away, tucked behind a small mountain ridge. The road stretched out flat and empty. Ethan became frustrated with the radio and so Henry put in a Rolling Stones tape. I had always been more of a fan of dance music, but my two older brothers were classic rock diehards. The words to the songs came back to my mind easily. I started singing along and Ethan picked up the tune. Henry joined in and we gave Mick Jagger a run for his money as we pulled into the parking lot of the market.

The market was small, nothing like the spectacle on Olivera Street in Los Angeles. If anything it reminded me of the open-air market back home in Portland, Maine. The Portland Public Market had local farmers, but also bakers, beekeepers and fishermen all selling their wares. This market was more haphazard, like a carnival set up and then quickly demolished, but it had the same eclectic and homespun mix of vendors.

“This is awesome,” I said, hopping out of the van. I felt light-hearted for the first time in months. I favored the boys with one of my big grins, white and wide, causing a dimple to appear in my left cheek. They stepped back, momentarily dazzled.

“Do you want some coffee, Julie?” asked Henry.

“Real coffee?” Things were getting better by the second. At Aurora, in addition to bancha tea, we also drank grain ‘coffee.’ It was made from roasted barley and brown rice and came in a tin that featured what looked like a nice hot cup of coffee on the front. False advertising—it tasted like burnt water.

“I'll buy you a latte,” said Henry, starting to walk away.

“What about Ethan?” I said, running to keep up with Henry's long-legged strides.

“He can't drink coffee. He brought some bancha in a thermos.” Henry steered me in the direction of the coffee shop.

We ordered mocha lattes to go and then went back to the market. I waited for Henry to hit on me. Surely that was why he bought me coffee. But he barely spoke to me and after we had gotten our coffees, he took off in one direction without a glance backward.

The market was full of normal people. Bright outfits, families, people smoking, drinking coffee, gossiping. I wandered around from stall to stall, kept warm by the heat of the paper cup in my hand. The caffeine rushed through my body, making my hands shake as if I was doing speed. A week of macrobiotic food and demeanor washed off my body. I was young and pretty, strolling through a farmers' market on a Saturday morning. At each booth, the farmers smiled at me. A grandfatherly man in blue flannel gave me a handful of raspberries, which stained my fingertips pink and mashed sweetly against my tongue.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. “We packed up the van,” said Ethan.

“Already? We can’t stay for lunch or wander around town?”

“Another time. Henry wants to get back.” Ethan wove through the crowd, forcing me to follow. I lagged behind, throwing my empty coffee cup in a trashcan, revisiting all the stalls I had already seen. When I reached the van, Ethan and Henry were already strapped in and they glowered at me. The power of my charms had definitely reached its limit. Wordlessly, I clambered in and fastened my seat belt.

With me fully ensconced in the back seat, Ethan and Henry talked more freely. Mainly about stuff I had little interest in—old car engines, guitar chords, organic farming. I listened with half an ear, enjoying the easy rhythm of their conversation. It occurred to me that I hadn’t picked out any food for my party this evening. I wondered what Ethan and Henry had decided we would be eating.

When we got back to the center, I noticed a Harley motorcycle parked in the lot. On it, sat a blond man in a black leather jacket and a petite girl with short dark hair.

“Davo's back,” said Henry.

“I had hoped he would get lost in the wild somewhere. Or maybe eaten by a bear.” answered Ethan.

Davo was the only other staff member I hadn’t met. Arla had mentioned that he was on vacation. Seemed odd, to take a vacation from a place that people came to vacation at. Arla hadn’t mentioned that Davo was rock-star cute. He could have been straight from central casting—the leather jacket, the shoulder-length blond hair curving over the collar, long legs in faded jeans, even a golden bristle of stubble shading his cheeks.

“Is the girl on the back his girlfriend?” I asked. Hopefully yes, I told myself firmly. Men that gorgeous were never anything but trouble.

Henry looked over at me but said nothing. I waited for Ethan to fill me in. “That's Morgan. She eats here most days.”

“Why? She’s not staff.”

“Hideo wouldn’t take her on staff. She's too sick. She’s got an apartment in town but her parents pay for it and for an endowment to the center. Whatever Morgan wants.” Henry spit out the words with clipped venom. His eyes followed her so intensely that I wondered if he was a jilted lover.

“She's dying,” added Ethan. “Brain cancer. Inoperable. She wanted to see Yosemite so Davo took her camping.”

“Shouldn't she be in a hospital?” I watched her dismount from the bike slowly, every movement labored and deliberate. Did they really believe that macrobiotics would save this girl?

Henry and Ethan got out of the van, and in tandem began to unload the crates of vegetables onto the expandable cart. Davo waved at them and they smiled but did not stop working. The male bonding between Ethan and Henry did not extend to Davo. Davo and Morgan both stared but Ethan and Henry made no move to introduce me. Davo hopped off the bike.

“I've got to go use the bathroom,” I called to Ethan and then dashed for the door. My heart pounded. I knew Davo had been about to talk to me but instead of staying and flirting my first impulse was to flee. Was this progress? The old me would have been down there chatting him up, tracing loops in the dirt with one foot and looking at him under my eyelashes. I had promised myself that my life at Aurora would be free of romantic complication. No men, no sex, none of the usual drama that marked my life. I hadn’t been without a boyfriend since I was first allowed to date at fifteen. I had vowed that I would fly solo from now on. But just my luck, I put on a pretty dress and the next thing I knew, a sexy guy on a Harley appeared.

I got back to my room and splashed cold water on my face. Arla looked surprised to see me.

“You wore that to the market?”

“I'm going to change back into other clothes now,” I said.

“But how did you lug around boxes of carrots and onions in that outfit?”

I blushed with shame. They had invited me along to help with the weekly shopping and I had paraded around in my little sundress like I was out on a date. I had let Ethan and Henry deal with the business of buying the boxes of vegetables needed to feed all of us at the center. They had probably expected me to help them unload too. I quickly pulled on a pair of jeans and then took off my sundress, almost forgetting that Arla was in the room.

“Wow,” she said as I reached for my bra. “Your breasts are huge.”

“Thanks,” I said, although I knew it was not a compliment. I clasped the bra and picked up the first shirt I could find. It wasn’t one of the baggy ones I had brought to wear at the center; it was one of my old ones—ruby red, tight, with a sequined star straining across my cleavage. The whole outfit was almost sexier than the dress but I didn’t want to go through changing into something else. “I'm going to help put away the groceries.”

Ethan and Henry were logging in the purchased food. Ethan showed me where to write in the amounts on the clipboard kept in the walk-in refrigerator. I sat on a stool and penciled everything in as Ethan and Henry shouted the amounts to me. As we were finishing up, Gina came in, wiping her floury hands on her green apron. “You aren't supposed to be in here,” she said to me. “We have to make your party food.” She went to the refrigerator and picked up the large tub of almonds. “You aren’t allergic to anything are you?”

“Nope,” I said, getting off the stool.

I was alone at last. I sprawled on my bed, enjoying my moment of peace. Arla was down the hall working on my party. I wondered if it bothered her to have to do something nice for me. After living with her for a week, I still couldn’t decide if she liked me or hated me. Back home in Maine, my sister Tiffany and I shared a big attic room, and in college Katie and I were roommates for two years running. And then there was Doug. I had never had a roommate who didn’t like me. Tiffany and I fought sometimes but only about stupid stuff like outfits and makeup. Mainly we were simpatico, trading clothes and staying up late at night gossiping about school. Most teens who shared a room would have had some dividing line of your stuff/my stuff. We painted the entire room robin’s egg blue and went halfsies on posters and the stereo system. Now, Tiff had no idea where I was. I imagined she was still in Maine. Dad and Mom wouldn’t let her go too far from home after what had happened to me. They had been against me going to college in California, three thousand miles away from home. I had applied to the school in secret and if I hadn’t gotten a partial scholarship for running track, they wouldn’t have let me go. Two years later, when I moved in with Doug, my mother wrote me off as lost. She couldn’t believe she had a daughter who was living in sin. She had no idea. Would she find my new life as shocking as my old one? I hadn’t talked to her in three years but I imagined nothing at home had changed. Mom and Dad would always be married, live at the same address and share the sort of grumbling affection that constitutes most long-term marriages. They weren’t so much happy as they were settled. I hadn’t wanted that for myself. Instead I had made myself rootless and connected to nothing.

I sat up on my bed, willing thoughts of home out of my head. For the next six months, this would be my home. And my new makeshift family was making me dinner. What would the party be like? I assumed it wasn’t the sort of party I could dress up for. Not like last weekend, my farewell birthday party and the final appearance of my alter ego.

Last Saturday night, I had become Jewel Cadeau for the last time. I chose her final outfit with care. Doug let me buy whatever I wanted as long as it was sexy. It was my party and I was the draw so I had to be the best Jewel Cadeau I could be. I bought a white Lycra blend suit. The skirt was a micro mini and the jacket was low-cut and buttoned in the front with an open back lined with a train of lace that ended just past the peplum waist. The back of the jacket had laces so that I could cinch it in tightly like a corset. I looked like a slut-bride, reminiscent of Madonna during her Like-a-Virgin years. Because I had already had my acrylic nails removed, I wore white lace gloves to cover my ravaged fingers. The overall look was pure trash and I enjoyed it because it would be the last time.

That night, I sat in front of my mirrored dressing table and put my makeup on, able now to enjoy the intricate process because I wouldn’t have to do it every day anymore. I did the full face, foundation to powder, glued false eyelashes carefully into place. Finally I was complete, the archetypal California blonde. We all looked the same, the blonde porn stars, the silicone army. California took an endless parade of girls from all over the country and turned them into versions of each other. Odd since the part of the thrill of porn was the fantasy of sleeping with many partners. Black girls, Asians, Latinas, all they had to do was add on the boobs and nails. Their individuality was a draw, whereas any ordinary white girl had to be transformed into the cheerleader-gone-wrong. I had never questioned it. I dyed my hair, I got implants, let them suck the fat off my ass and shoot it into my lips. And I was pretty, pretty noticeable or pretty fuckable, but not beautiful. More like an average girl with extras.
It was my last night for stripper heels, clear plastic fuck-me shoes that made me nearly six feet tall and mashed my pearly-pink painted toes in the front. When Doug came home, he was thrilled. I was like a billboard for nasty sex. And it was my birthday. Doug handed me two dozen biteably-soft red roses. He pulled the champagne from the refrigerator and arranged the lines of coke on the mirror. He offered me a straw but I shrugged him off even as my nose tingled in anticipation. No more coke. I could face the next day with a hangover but not with the used-up, chemical comedown cocaine crash ricocheting through my system.

The party was being held at a local hotel. A banquet room, one of the places we had been to for swinger parties, where the right amount of money doled out kept the management from being too scandalized. The champagne bubbled through my body, hitting all the right pleasure centers. For a while, I coasted along on good cheer and best wishes, everyone’s hands sliding up my skirt or around my waist, inching toward my breasts.

Only the people who would be financially impacted by my departure knew I was leaving. Doug insisted that I not use the party as a chance to say goodbye. More proof that he planned to replace me as soon as possible. I wondered if he would even bother to use a different name or if he would just find another girl to be Jewel Cadeau.

“Jewel, sweets. Happy Birthday.” Laura ran up and wrapped me in a heavily-scented embrace of breast implants and gold chains. I tried to return her greeting from my smothered place against her bosom. She released me and I could breathe again.

“I hear you’re leaving us.” Bruce, Laura's husband, hugged me tightly, cupping my ass firmly with both hands. Laura and Bruce had been with us since the beginning. They fronted us the initial money to make our first movie. Our investors but also our friends and our lovers, almost parental in their doting attention. At our first swingers' party, they had zeroed in on us as the young kids, the newbies, and they never let go. I hated them for changing me from Julie to Jewel, and for warping Doug into a man I would never have chosen.

“I'm going to miss you two so much,” I said, my smile gone dry against my teeth.

“Doug wouldn’t tell us where you’re going,” Bruce moved in closer to flank one side of me.

I shrugged, scanning the room for a rescuer. I swallowed my champagne in a single swallow and then held up my glass. “Oops, I need more bubbly,” I giggled and swayed off toward the bar.

“Is this the liquor line?” I said to the overweight bald man blocking my view of the bar.

“The lick-her line? You bet,” he said with a leer.

Obviously one of Doug’s new investor friends. Play nice, I reminded myself. “You big flirt,” I said playfully, draping one hand over his shoulder. My jacket rode up, showing an expanse of tanned stomach. He blushed, immediately flattered. I slipped past him and ordered a Champagne and Cointreau, even though I knew that the delicious combination would result in a fierce hangover.

“See you later, handsome,” I said to the investor as I drifted into the crowd. Back in the ballroom, I searched the dancers gyrating on the dance floor. I couldn’t see Doug anywhere. Was he off doing lines with the corporate types or getting head from a slack-jawed understudy? It couldn’t matter to me anymore. I wove my way back through the party and up to the DJ booth.

Fernando had been the DJ at a lot of the parties I went to or hosted. I knew his music collection as well as my own. It didn’t take me long to find the song I wanted. I slid an arm around Fernando’s waist and whispered in his ear. He nodded and then stopped the music.

“Everyone having a good time tonight?” He threw his arms open to the crowd.

The crowd hooted in response. I imagined how I must look, up on that stage, my white outfit glowing in the party lights. A complete spectacle, one last time.

“Tonight we are here to wish a special lady happy birthday. She’s asked me to play a song for her, but before I do that, how about a round of ‘Happy Birthday?’”

Everyone began to sing. It took a line or two before the voices became coherent. I smiled and waved, pretending I loved the attention. They finished with a flurry of applause and I blew kisses out to the crowd.

Fernando then kissed me. “For luck,” he said, spoiling my moment with the intrusion of his tongue. I waited him out and finally he moved back to the turntable and played my song.

It wasn’t dance music. It was Springsteen, Doug’s favorite. I knew if anything could flush him out of whatever subterranean corner he had ducked into, it would be Springsteen. Sure enough, he came bolting out onto the dance floor where the partygoers were wiggling uncertainly, not sure how to wrap their hips around the music of the Boss.

Doug walked over and picked me up in his arms, spinning me around. He kissed me and people sighed as if they thought they were witnessing love.