THE NEXT DAY I only remembered having sex with Aja. In my defense the sex had been absolutely incredible and what had followed had been very abstract. Even though I’d felt the memory of being with her would sustain me for the rest of my life, I wanted to be with her again as soon as possible. It was the lover’s eternal paradox. One night was enough but a thousand nights would never satisfy me.
I felt I was in love.
Honestly, I only vaguely recalled what she’d said as we fell asleep. But I’d had such amazing dreams. I felt I’d spent the whole night flying.
We slept in and ordered room service: breakfast. We ordered half the menu. Aja begged me to let her use Aunt Clara’s credit card and I gave in. She continued to show no grief over the woman’s passing. With anyone else I would have been concerned but with Aja it all seemed so natural.
We didn’t start back to Elder until one o’clock. There were clouds in the sky. The first sign of summer coming to an end. Knowing South Dakota, I thought, the weather would skip autumn and head straight into winter. It occurred to me that Aja had probably never seen snow before. I asked and she said that was true.
“You’re in for a treat. Sort of,” I said.
“This body has never been cold before.”
I smiled. “You like to say ‘this body’ rather than ‘I.’ I know you’d say it all the time if Bart hadn’t lectured you about it. Why do you do that?”
She glanced at me. Her lower lip was still swollen from the previous night. “Because I’m not the body,” she said.
A feeling of déjà vu swept over me and I felt a mild dizziness. It reminded me of the first day I had met Aja, when she had touched me while we were eating lunch on the bench. I struggled a bit with the wheel of the car.
“You told me that last night,” I said.
“Yes.”
I frowned. “Why am I having trouble remembering?”
“It’s hard for most people to understand. Don’t worry, it’ll come back to you with time.”
“What will?”
“What you need to know.”
“About you?”
“About you.” Aja touched my shoulder. “It will be okay, Fred.”
The dizziness caused by my déjà vu fled and I was able to steady the car on the road. I smiled at her reply. “You like to say that as well. But I don’t think it’s true. The world’s a brutal place. Life is seldom okay for very long. Just look at what happened to Mike.”
Aja squeezed my shoulder and nodded.
But she didn’t say anything.
I dropped her at home before I returned the Camry to Janet’s house. Bo met me in the garage. He joked about providing transportation for my love life. “You should just buy the damn car from me,” he said.
“Didn’t you already give it to Janet?”
Bo shrugged. “It’s impossible to give that girl anything. She keeps insisting it’s my car when I keep telling her it belongs to her.”
“Whose name is it listed under at the DMV?”
“Mine. She won’t let me put in under her name.”
“That’s weird.”
“That’s her mother in her. Hey, she told me to tell you she’s over at Shelly’s with the rest of the band. They want you to go over. Mike can’t play yet but they still want to practice.”
“Thanks. And thanks again for the car.”
Bo grinned mischievously. “Just tell me if you got lucky last night?”
“A gentleman never says.”
“Since when are you a gentleman?”
I laughed. “Since last night!”
Bo patted me on the back. “That’s my man!”
I walked straight to Shelly’s house. My two main guitars were at home but I could always use my old Fender if we decided to jam. Walking up to our heavily insulated garage, I was surprised when a middle-aged couple jumped out of their car and hurried over to me.
“Excuse me, are you Fred Allen? The lead singer of Half Life?” the man asked. They were both overweight with pleasant faces. Yet they were tense as well and I was reminded of the incident at the restaurant. Suddenly, I knew what was coming. Their car plates said they were from Ohio.
“Who wants to know?” I asked.
“Please forgive us. My name is Dustin Alastair and this is my wife, Eileen. We know who you are. We saw you in that first video Casey Morall posted on YouTube.”
“That video didn’t exactly focus on my singing.”
“I’m sorry. But to be honest we’re not here because of you,” Mr. Alastair said. “Our ten-year-old daughter, Lisa, is in the car, lying in the backseat, resting. She has an inoperable brain tumor.” He paused. “The doctors say she doesn’t have long to live.”
“We need Aja to heal her,” Mrs. Alastair blurted out.
“I’m sorry, I can’t help you.” I tried slipping past them but they blocked my way.
Mr. Alastair continued. “Look, Fred, may I call you Fred? We’ve checked around town. Everyone says you’re Aja’s boyfriend. We’ve been out to her house. But no one answers when we ring the doorbell. And we understand that. Tons of people must be showing up and begging her to heal them. I realize we’re nobody to you.” He began to choke up. “But Lisa’s all we have. And if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, if you could just ask Aja to look at her.”
“We’d be so grateful,” Mrs. Alastair said, her eyes watering.
This couple wasn’t like the one Aja and I had run into the previous night. They were in terrible pain but they were still striving to be kind and polite. Yes, maybe they were a little pushy, I thought, but if I was in their position would I be any different? I mean, if I honestly believed Aja could heal my child. The answer, of course, was no. So it made it harder for me to brush them off.
Yet I had a problem. Well, actually I had a few problems. First off, I didn’t know if Aja could help Lisa. On the other hand, I wasn’t certain Aja couldn’t help their daughter. Somehow, sleeping with Aja, having sex with her, and listening to what she had told me—whatever it had been—had altered my mind in some mysterious way. All the doubts I’d had about her healing ability, they had not vanished. Not completely, at least. I mean, it wasn’t as if I’d suddenly been transformed into a true believer. But the idea that she could work miracles no longer seemed ridiculous. And that in itself was something of a miracle, I thought.
Yet I was terrified what would happen to Aja if she did try to heal Lisa Alastair. Touching Mike’s head had wiped her out for a week. She was my girlfriend now—at least in my mind she was—and there was no way I was going to risk hurting her, no matter how dire the Alastairs’ situation was.
It was all very confusing and difficult.
“Are you staying in town?” I asked.
Mr. Alastair spoke. “We just got a room at the Great Western. Room sixteen.”
“Okay, room sixteen. I’ll remember that. Look, I’ll be talking to Aja later today and I’ll ask her about Lisa. But I must warn you, the chances of her doing anything to help your daughter are small. Really small, I mean, extremely remote. So please don’t get your hopes up.”
“Can I give you our cell number?” Mr. Alastair asked, handing me a card.
“Sure,” I said. I put it in my back pocket.
“But she can heal people, right?” Mrs. Alastair said. “You’ve seen her cure people?”
I shook my head. “Honestly, I’ve never seen her heal anyone. Not with my own eyes.”
That seemed to shock the Alastairs. They didn’t know how to respond. I took the opportunity to slip away. I headed for the garage and went inside. Mike, Dale, Shelly, Janet—everyone was waiting for me. Only no one looked ready to play music. The mood was somber. I didn’t have to ask if they’d spoken to the Alastairs. It was written on their faces.
“We have a problem,” Janet said.
“I told you guys about my meeting with Casey Morall,” I said, taking a seat beside Mike and Dale on the dumpy yellow couch we kept pressed against our amps to smooth out our sound. We also used it to crash on.
Shelly sat behind her keyboards, Janet behind the drums. In a pinch Janet could play the drums. She had the few times Mike had been too drunk to go onstage. But she wasn’t very good.
“You didn’t tell me,” Shelly said.
“Sorry,” I said. “The bottom line is Casey’s got too much time and emotion invested in ‘Aja’s story’ to back off.”
“Aja should sue her,” Shelly said.
Janet spoke. “Yesterday, I would have said no way. But today I wonder if it’s not a bad idea.”
“Casey’s not our problem,” Mike said abruptly.
A long silence followed his remark.
“What do you mean?” Janet asked.
Dale spoke. “Aja’s the problem.” He turned in my direction. “Fred knows what Mike and I are talking about.”
I hesitated. “Not really. What do you mean?”
Mike spoke. “You must have noticed we left the garage door open. We heard you talking to the Alastairs.”
“So? They drove a long way. They seemed like nice people. I didn’t want to just brush them off.”
“You gave them hope,” Janet said. “You shouldn’t have done that. It doesn’t matter that you told them the chances Aja could help their daughter were remote. All they heard is that it’s possible and that hope will torture them. You should call them right now and tell them to take their daughter home.”
“I agree,” Shelly said.
“I don’t,” Mike said.
“Neither do I,” Dale said.
Janet jumped up, knocking over the snare drum with her leg. “Hold on a second! What in God’s name are we talking about here? You guys are acting like Aja really can heal people. Do you know how nuts that is?”
Again, another long silence. It was weird that Mike and Dale had stirred the pot with their remarks but everyone was looking to me to tell them what we should do with what was already in the pot. I lowered my head and kept my mouth shut.
“Well?” Janet said finally. “Somebody say something.”
Dale stood. “Fred knows Aja better than any of us. I don’t think we should be so quick to judge what he said to the Alastairs.”
Janet groaned loudly. “Didn’t you guys hear what he just said? He didn’t brush off the Alastairs because he was too much of a coward to hurt their feelings. Not because he thinks Aja can save their daughter.” She paused. “Right, Fred?”
I shrugged. “I didn’t know what to tell them.”
Dale spoke carefully. “There’s an elephant is this room that none of us wants to talk about. But I think it’s something we need to face. Now.”
Shelly frowned. “Huh?”
Janet fumed. “Dale’s talking about Mike’s amazing recovery. He’s implying that Aja had something to do with it. And Mike, to my surprise, is saying the same thing, without really saying it. Why is everyone afraid to just say what they mean? Could it be because Fred’s here? And he’s sleeping with Aja?” Janet paused to catch her breath. “Am I right or am I right?”
Shelly looked stunned. She looked at me. “You had sex with Aja?”
I stood. “I’m sorry, guys, but I’m awfully tired. I’m going to go home and sleep.” I headed for the door. “Good-bye.”
I left in a hurry.
• • •
At home I spoke to my parents for a few minutes before disappearing into my room. The previous night, to keep my mom and dad from worrying, I’d called them when Aja and I had checked into the Hilton. But I’d lied and told them I was with Mike and would be at his house the whole night.
I don’t think either of them believed me because they repeatedly asked when they were going to get to meet Aja. Apparently they’d heard people around town talking about her. But they seemed to know nothing about Casey Morall’s videos. My parents had no interest in the Internet. They could send and read e-mail but that was about it.
Upstairs, lying on my bed, I blacked out. Although I’d slept well with Aja, the last few days had been stressful and I really was exhausted. I slept soundly for two hours and may have gone longer if my cell hadn’t rung.
“Hello?” I mumbled.
“Did I wake you?”
It was Janet, the last person I wanted to talk to. I couldn’t believe she had told the others I was sleeping with Aja. I wasn’t even sure how she knew, although I had kept her car the entire night. “What do you want?” I growled.
“I want to apologize,” Janet said.
“Great. Apologize after you let the cat out of the bag.”
“I know, what I said was totally rude, especially with Shelly in the room. I was just feeling pissed off about how everyone keeps acting like Aja is the second coming of Christ. Stuff like that really pushes my buttons. But it’s no excuse for what I did. I swear, Fred, I just blurted out the thing about you and Aja. I didn’t know I was going to say it until I did.”
The remark had annoyed me, especially since it had been so out of character for Janet. Growing up together, I’d always been impressed how she respected people’s privacy. Indeed, she was something of a fanatic on the issue.
But we were too close. I never could stay mad at Janet for more than a few minutes.
“It’s all right. She was bound to find out,” I said.
“Thanks. Thanks for letting it go. I’ll let you get back to sleep.”
I sat up in bed. “No, wait. In a way, I’m glad you called. I’ve been wanting to talk to you about these yogis you’ve been studying.”
“You want to discuss yoga the day after you lost your virginity?”
“How do you know I was a virgin? How do you know I never had sex with Nicole?”
“By the way you walk. A girl can tell. Why the sudden interest in yoga?”
“Aja told me some pretty weird stuff about herself last night. We need to talk about it. I’m beginning to realize that girl is stranger than we thought.”
“I can come over right now if you like.”
“I’ll come to your house. I’m the one asking the favor.”
“I’d rather talk about it at your house. Is now a good time?”
“Sure,” I said.
Janet arrived twenty minutes later with several books in hand. By then I was strumming my acoustic guitar, trying to work out more verses for “Strange Girl.” I was making progress. I played Janet my latest version of the song and she liked it. She said she loved it, actually, which meant a lot to me. Janet was hard to please.
“You should put it on your demo,” Janet said, sitting on the edge of my bed. I was in the chair beside my computer.
“I’ve already laid down the tracks for three songs.”
“This might be your strongest piece. I’d include it.”
“I’ll think about it.” I gestured to her books. “Once, when we were talking about yoga and meditation, you mentioned a specific system where you realize everything is one. I forget what you called it.”
“Advaita. It literally means ‘non-dual’ or ‘not two.’ It’s the form of meditation I’m into.”
“And you believe in this system?” I asked.
“I don’t believe in anything, you know that. Advaita isn’t based on beliefs. It teaches you how to quiet your mind. It works for me. It calms me down.” Janet paused. “What does this have to do with Aja?”
I tried my best to relate what Aja had told me about the Big Person and the Little Person; not being the mind or the body. I followed that by saying how Aja had given me a glimpse of the experience. Janet laughed when I explained it had happened right after we’d had sex. Yet I could tell she was listening closely. When I finished Janet sat silent for a long time, thinking.
“So?” I said finally.
“I’m not sure. Aja sounds like she’s describing the goal of Advaita. Not only that, she seems to be saying she’s realized the goal.”
“Is that possible?”
“Yeah. It’s also possible she’s just nuts.”
“Aja’s not nuts,” I snapped.
“I hear ya. I’m just saying that it’s more likely that she’s crazy than that she’s in cosmic consciousness. Listen, there’s an old saying from the Bhagavad Gita where Krishna says that out of a thousand people who are born, only one seeks the supreme state. And out of the thousand who seek the supreme state, only one finds it.” Janet paused. “That gives Aja only a one-in-a-million shot.”
“Those are pretty lousy odds.”
Janet shrugged. “Tell me about it. But for most people even a little peace of mind is better than jumping off a ten-story building.”
“I hope that’s not why you took up the practice.”
“Nah. There are no ten-story buildings in Elder.”
“This goal of Advaita, seeking the supreme state—what does it mean?”
“It’s the oldest goal in mankind’s history. ‘Know thyself.’ ”
“Are you talking about some sort of enlightenment?”
Janet frowned. “I hate that word. It sounds so New Age. Advaita is an ancient system of meditation where you don’t meditate on anything. No god, no mantra, no philosophy.”
“So you don’t chant ‘Hare Krishna’?”
“No.”
“What do you do?” I asked.
“You’ve asked me that before. You don’t do anything.”
“You just sit there?”
“You sit there with your eyes closed and stay with the awareness that you exist. Nothing else. You don’t pretend you exist. You don’t make a mood of it. You don’t have to because everyone already exists. You just turn your mind in that direction and let go.”
“Why bother? I mean, what do you get out of it?”
“I just told you. Peace of mind.”
“Okay, I get that. But let’s stick with Aja. She seems pretty damn peaceful. You yourself have said nothing seems to bother her.”
Janet hesitated. “That’s true. She is unique. I mean, for someone who hardly talks, she’s highly charismatic. She just had to say a few words at the Roadhouse to shut up that crazy mob. And she definitely has a strong presence about her. And you’re right, I’ve never seen her upset.”
“So . . .”
Janet interrupted. “Let me finish. I can think of a few more points in Aja’s favor. In fact, you just gave me a few extra with what you told me she said to you. It’s obvious she’s never studied classical Advaita. She doesn’t use any of the common Sanskrit words that teachers use to describe it. Still, it’s clear that’s what she’s talking about. Take the way Aja described the ‘Little Person’ to you. She told you it’s what most people think they are. Advaita would agree with that. Most people are ignorant. I’ve been studying Advaita for months and I’m still ignorant.”
“Ignorant of what?” I asked.
“Who I am. I still see myself as ‘Janet Shell.’ I see myself as having a certain kind of body. When I look in the mirror I see brown eyes, dark hair, an average face. I know I’m attractive but I know I’m nowhere close to being beautiful. That’s the body my parents gave me. Then there’s my mind, my personality. I know I grew up in Elder, and that I’m a senior in high school. I know I’m the smartest one in my school but I try not to brag about it. All these facts, all these characteristics—they’re how I define myself. And that’s what Aja calls the Little Person. Right?”
“She uses different words but it sounds like you’re talking about the same thing,” I said.
Janet continued. “Most Indian Advaita teachers call the Little Person ‘maya,’ which means illusion. Basically they say that who we think we are is not who we really are. Who we really are is the Brahman. The Brahman’s like a universal being, some kind of supersoul. Going by what you just told me, Aja’s Big Person sounds a lot like the Brahman.”
“This Brahman—a person who’s experienced it, how do they behave? How do they feel?”
“Well, if you can believe the Advaita teachers, a person who knows the Brahman lives in infinite bliss. They’re not bound by the mind or the body. They’re beyond all suffering.”
“Can they work miracles?” I asked.
“It says in the books I’ve read that the person who reaches that state can do anything he or she wishes. But I doubt they would go around interfering with nature. Chances are they would accept whatever was happening to someone else as their karma or their fate or their destiny. Whatever you want to call it.”
“What if a child’s dying of cancer? Wouldn’t they try to help them?”
Janet shook her head. “I’ve read lots of books on the few people who have supposedly realized the Brahman. None went around curing people of cancer or heart disease or even impotence.” She paused. “At least, none of them did it as a regular practice.”
“What’s that mean?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Janet.”
She sighed. “I’m not saying I believe this—I don’t—but witnesses say that sometimes miracles do happen around such people.”
“You’re saying they happen spontaneously?”
“That’s what the books say.” Janet was troubled. “I’m telling you the pros for Aja’s high state because that’s what you’re looking for. But like I said at the start, there are a lot more cons against her being that one-in-a-million soul. Hell, the very idea of the Brahman might be bullshit for all I know. I told you, I meditate because it works for me. It gets rid of my stress. That’s all I know for sure.” Janet paused. “And you already know I don’t see Aja as some kind of miracle worker. That’s not even on the table.”
“Why not?” I asked.
Janet groaned. “Because I’ve never seen her work a single miracle. Not in front of me. Neither have you. Admit it, all we’ve heard is a bunch of talk.”
I studied Janet. “You know, just now, when you spoke about the Brahman and the goal of Advaita, there was an enthusiasm in your voice. Like you really want to believe it’s true. And as much as you pretend to doubt Aja, I hear the same tone when you talk about what’s special about her.”
Janet chuckled, although it sounded a bit forced to me. “If you’re trying to label me as a true believer, you’ve got the wrong girl.”
“I’m not saying that. I’m saying you’re more open-minded than you’re willing to admit. And I can tell all this talk about Aja healing people fascinates you. Sure, you dismiss it—hardheaded Janet Shell can’t admit to having faith in anything too weird. But I’ve seen how protective you are of Aja. How you study her when you think no one else is watching.”
“What can I say? She’s different. That makes her interesting to me. Her talking to you about Advaita, in her own way, also interests me.” Janet paused. “If Aja’s here to help teach people about their Little Person and the Big Person, then I say more power to her. I mean it. It’s a relief to meet a girl with more on her mind than ‘is my mascara smeared?’ or ‘does my hair need to be blow-dried?’ You have no idea how much shit like that drives me crazy.”
That made me smile. “You know as well as I do Aja isn’t here to teach anything. Hell, I can hardly get the girl to talk.”
“Hmm. You’ve got a point there.” Janet considered for a minute. “Does Aja ever talk about how she underwent this awakening? When it happened?”
“No. I get the impression she’s always been this way.”
Janet plucked a book from her pile. “There was a woman saint in India called Anandamayi Ma, which means ‘Joy Permeated Mother.’ She was born in 1896 and was supposed to have been enlightened from the time of her birth. She was supposed to be unique in that respect. This book is all about her life. She was extremely beautiful. And she had Aja’s same habit of calling herself ‘this body.’ ”
My ears perked up. “She really called herself that?”
“Yeah. We’re talking about a famous person here. Many in India consider her their country’s greatest saint.”
“What did she teach?”
“She didn’t teach Advaita, not per se. She embraced all paths.”
“Was she married? Did she have children?”
Janet snickered. “There are funny stories about that. You know how marriages in India are arranged? She was married off to this guy when she was pretty young and on their wedding night, just when they were about to have sex, he was supposed to have realized who she was and prostrated before her. But another story says that later, when he did get horny for her, when he touched her, he received an electric shock that almost killed him.” Janet paused. “I take it that didn’t happen with Aja?”
I shrugged. “It was her idea to have sex.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
My cell phone rang. I picked it up. “Hello?” I said.
“Fred, this is Dustin Alastair. I can’t thank you enough for speaking to Aja on our behalf. She told us Lisa’s going to make a complete recovery and that we have nothing to worry about. I’d say it’s too good to be true but already Lisa’s up and running around like there’s nothing wrong with her. And neither her mother nor I told her anything about the healing Aja did on her.”
I felt dumbfounded. I wasn’t alone. It was silent in my room and I had the volume on my cell up high. Janet’s eyes had suddenly swelled wide. She’d obviously heard most of what Mr. Alastair had said. I moved onto my bed beside her.
“Mr. Alastair, would you mind if I put you on speakerphone for a moment?” I asked.
“No problem.”
I pushed the speaker button. “I’m here with my best friend, Janet, who is a close friend of Aja. We’re both a little puzzled by what you just said. When did Lisa and Aja meet? What happened exactly?”
“Oh, they never met. Aja said it wasn’t necessary. She just called us here at the Great Western.”
Janet and I exchanged a look. Boy, was it a long look.
“When?” I asked.
“An hour ago. That’s when Lisa suddenly felt better. I tell you, Fred, you probably think I’m a gullible man but I’ve been around. If I hadn’t seen such drastic improvement in Lisa, I wouldn’t have believed a word Aja said. But you can’t argue when your daughter rises from her deathbed and wants to go for a swim in the hotel pool.”
I looked to Janet for support. She shrugged helplessly.
“Well, I’m happy for the three of you,” I said. “You have a safe drive back to Ohio. But please do me one favor. Don’t tell anyone what Aja did for Lisa. I think you understand why.”
“I understand perfectly. God bless you, Fred. You, too, Janet.”
The man hung up. “What the hell’s going on here?” I said.
“I don’t know.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.” Janet looked stunned. “I don’t know.”
I bowed my head as I crouched on the edge of my bed. “And here I thought everything was about to calm back down. When the craziness has just begun.”
Janet put her arm around my shoulder. “You want my advice?”
“Sure,” I said.
“If all you want is an ordinary girlfriend to have sex with, then get out of town quick. And don’t come back.”
I sat up with a jerk. “Aja could be sick!”
“Huh?”
“Remember, she got sick after she healed Mike.” I frantically dialed Aja’s home number. She answered on the third ring.
“Hello, Fred.”
“How did you know it was me?” I gasped.
“It says so on the caller ID.”
God, I was losing it. I was seeing miracles everywhere.
“I heard you worked your magic on Lisa Alastair. I just wanted to know if you were feeling okay.”
“I’m fine. Are we still going to a movie tonight?”
“Sure. But—how did you know Lisa was sick?”
“Her father called and told me.”
“I got the impression you called him?”
“I did. He called me and left his number and I called him back,” Aja said.
“So you’re not sick from working on her?”
“I didn’t work on her. The Big Person did. What movie are we going to?”
“If we go to Balen we’ll have our choice of eight different films.”
“What time are you picking me up?”
“In an hour. I’ll see you in an hour.”
Aja said good-bye and I set down the phone. Janet read my mind.
“Mike was right,” she said. “Aja is the problem.”
• • •
Again, I borrowed Janet’s Camry and drove out to pick up Aja. On the way to the Carter Mansion, Dale called and asked if he and Mike could hook up with us after the film. They were going to a movie in Balen as well—a horror flick. I’d already decided to take Aja to a romantic comedy. The films ended at the same time so I said okay. We agreed to meet at ten at the restaurant in the Hilton.
The film turned out to be pretty funny and I laughed a lot, along with Aja. She seemed to have a thing for the theater’s popcorn. She ate a king-sized container all by herself. She told me she hadn’t had any dinner.
“Bart’s still grieving over Aunt Clara,” she said. “He left home to be alone so I didn’t bother cooking anything.”
“It normally takes people a while to get over a death in the family.”
Aja nodded. She understood.
Meeting up with the guys was fun. Mike looked much better than he had at Clara’s funeral, although he continued to wear a one-inch-wide head bandage. There was no arguing the obvious. His recovery was nothing short of a miracle. But my relief was short-lived. Not long after we each ordered dessert, Dale told me he’d heard Lisa Alastair had been healed.
“Damnit! Her father told me he wouldn’t talk about it,” I said.
“I think Lisa herself started the rumor,” Dale said. “She’d made friends with some kids who were staying at the Great Western. And she’d told them she was too sick to play. But after—well, after Aja got involved and Lisa was suddenly better, she went out to play and told her new friends that an angel had healed her. And the kids told their parents.”
I groaned. “Casey Morall’s going to hear about this.”
“Hopefully it won’t turn into a big deal,” Dale said. “If the man swore to you he wouldn’t talk about Aja, then Casey won’t have anyone close to Lisa to interview and it’ll just be another rumor if she posts it on YouTube.”
“Everything she’s posted has been secondhand,” Mike said. “That hasn’t stopped the millions of hits.”
“Is she still hounding you for an interview?” I asked.
Mike snorted. “Three times a day, every day. The chick doesn’t know when to quit.”
Dale stared at Aja across our table. “Can you tell us one way or the other—so we can quit arguing among ourselves—did you heal Mike and Lisa?”
Aja was slow to answer. “This body you see, that you call Aja, she can’t heal anyone.”
“But you’re more than the body,” Mike said. His remark surprised me. As far as I knew, he’d never heard Aja talk about the Big Person and the Little Person. Yet, it was possible, given his near-death experience, that he understood Aja better than any of us.
Who had been the second being of light?
Whose hand had he seen while outside his body?
“Yes,” Aja said.
“Can you explain that to us?” Dale asked carefully.
Aja repeated her explanation of the Big Person and the Little Person that she’d given me the previous night. Most of it sounded new to me, not just because I had only a foggy memory of what she’d told me, but because hearing it again, straight from her mouth, made it somehow real again. As she spoke I felt my mind quieting, my worries fading away. Watching the faces of my friends, I suspected they were feeling the same way.
Yet I still had plenty of questions. “If the Big Person worked on Mike, as well as Lisa, how come you only got sick when you healed Mike? How come you’re not sick now?” I asked.
Aja hesitated. “It’s hard to explain.”
“Could you try to explain?” Dale said gently.
Aja considered. “When I lived in Selva, I used to lie in the river and stare up at the sky. I loved it. The current would pull me downstream and occasionally I’d feel a fish swim beneath me. Sometimes it was a big fish and it wouldn’t even have to brush my skin for me to know it was there. It’s the same whenever I feel the Big Person heal someone. I feel a motion in the vastness. Before, I seldom caused the motion. The Big Person would just do what it would do.”
“But with me?” Mike said and let the question hang.
Aja glanced at me and Dale. “Your friends were worried about you. Dale was crying and Fred was struggling to figure out a way to make things better. While the doctor operated on you, I slept in the waiting room with my head on Fred’s shoulder. But I didn’t feel any motion in the Big Person. No big fish swam by. Then morning came and the doctor spoke to us and he acted like you were going to die. It was then this body—no, it was then Aja thought to do something to fix you.”
“That’s when you said you had to go to the bathroom but you really circled around and snuck into the recovery room right after Dale and I left,” I said.
Aja lowered her head. “I did have to go to the bathroom.”
“But you did sneak into the recovery room,” Dale said, and there was a tear in his eye. A tear of gratitude.
“Yes,” she said.
“Are you saying you overruled what the Big Person wanted to do for Mike?” I asked.
“The Big Person cannot be overruled.”
“Then why did you get sick after healing Mike?” I persisted.
“I let the Little Person get involved,” she said.
“Which means you must have a Little Person,” I said, more to myself. I began to feel like we were interrogating the girl and that we should stop. At that instant she reached under the table and squeezed my hand. She didn’t say anything.
“There is one point I hate to bring up,” Dale said. “It’s not an opinion I share, but I worry others might think it’s the case. If you start talking to them about having a Big Person and a Little Person inside of you, they’ll think you’re suffering from dissociative identity disorder.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“It’s the new name for people who have multiple personalities,” Dale said. “It usually stems from a trauma experienced in childhood. The person creates another personality as a coping mechanism. The ‘alter’—that’s what psychologists call it—holds on to the trauma and shelters it from the main personality.”
I couldn’t help but remember what Bart had told me. How Aja’s parents had been killed when she was a child.
“So the person is able to totally block out what happened to them?” I asked.
“Yes,” Dale said, and smiled. “But it’s not like I’m worried Aja’s suffering from DID. People with that condition are almost always miserable. They can’t function in the world. And they certainly can’t work miracles,” Dale added as he gazed at Aja. “Besides, you seem like the least traumatized person I’ve ever met.”
She smiled. “I feel fine.”
Our dessert came and the guys talked about the movie they’d seen and I told them about ours. Aja and I shared a huge banana split while Dale had a vanilla shake and Mike had chocolate cake with ice cream. We all drank coffee. What was interesting was how easily we switched from discussing the secrets of the universe to stuffing ourselves.
It wasn’t until near midnight when the restaurant was closing that we stood and prepared to drive back to Elder in our separate cars. We paid the bill and headed for the door. But Dale pulled me aside while Mike and Aja walked on ahead. He spoke in a hushed tone.
“You know Aja’s becoming a celebrity. Tomorrow’s Monday—the start of a new school week. Already people have been asking her questions, but come tomorrow they’ll be swarming all around her. How’s she going to take that?”
I sighed. “I was thinking the same thing. For all her hidden power, it’s not like she’s very good at defending herself.”
“What should we do?” Dale asked.
“I was hoping you’d have some idea.”
Dale stared after Aja and Mike. “Maybe we should pray to the Big Person to protect her,” he said.
Any other night, I would have laughed at the idea.
“Something bothering you?” Dale asked when I didn’t respond.
I shook my head. “It’s nothing. Everything’s fine.”
And it was, I told myself.
Aja had said she was fine.
Still, I kept wondering how her parents had died.