Twelve

The musicians bring their instruments into the unison of one harmonious chord that recedes until it ceases altogether, the sounds of the night jungle rushing in to fill the silence. Next to me, Ruby wipes tears from her cheeks, taking deep breaths. She catches me looking at her and quickly pulls herself together.

Kali stands, and the musicians follow her through the crowd and out the door, where they gather their shoes before descending into the forest. My body still hums with the residue of the music as we all follow suit, quietly filing into the anteroom to slip on our shoes, then down the stairs onto the packed wet dirt of the jungle path, lit with tiki torches that throw flickering shadows into the undergrowth.

I walk the jungle path next to Lucas, the humid air soft on my skin as the line of ghostlike figures trickles out of the woods and down the hill toward the lake. We follow the trail along the terraced garden to the water’s edge, toward where my uncle’s body lies shrouded atop the funeral pyre, amid a circle of torches.

The strike of a gong echoes over the water and Kali faces the crowd, flanked by Rex, Ruby, Aguilar, and Hikari. “Tonight we bid farewell to the body of our beloved Shiva. With this fire we release his spirit.”

She extends her arms to her sides, her ring fingers touching her thumbs as she intones a mantra in Sanskrit, her voice rising and falling with the melodic syllables.

When she’s finished, the gong rings again and Hikari passes her a clay pot that, from the way she holds it, must be heavy. The drums take up a ponderous rhythm and the sitar starts in with a haunting melody, followed by a honeyed, plaintive voice that floats over the water like a siren’s call. I crane my neck to see that the singer is Ruby, her face again wet with tears in the flickering firelight.

Chills run up my spine as Kali circles the funeral pyre holding the pot. When she returns, Hikari pierces the clay with a sharp rod that sends water gushing over her. Then she places the pot on the ground and stomps on it, smashing it to pieces. The gong rings again and Kali holds a torch to the base of the pyre. Gray smoke billows for a moment before the wood crackles and ignites. I blink back tears as Kali lights little fires all along the rim of the pyre until the entire structure is ablaze, then steps back to watch the hungry orange flames lick the wood.

Blaze grabs a torch and holds it alight. “Ram nam sit hair,” he cries, his eyes alive in the firelight.

“Ram nam sit hair,” the others join in. “Ram nam sit hair, ram nam sit hair.”

Chanting with growing fervor, they circle the pyre as the blaze intensifies, their swaying forms sending irregular shadows dancing into the night.

“It’s a variation on a Hindu burial ritual,” Lucas whispers into my hair.

“How do you know?” I ask.

“I visited Varanasi in India, on the banks of the Ganges, where hundreds of funeral rites are performed every day. It was . . .” He shakes his head. “I’ve never experienced anything like it.”

The fire sizzles and I flinch at my first whiff of something sulfurous and acrid. I cover my mouth and nose with my hands, but it’s not enough to block out the pungent smell of burning flesh, so thick it’s almost a taste. I think I’m going to be sick. I back away from the fire, but the steaky, putrid stench follows me, permeating everything. It’s too much. I’m suddenly claustrophobic, trapped by the fetid odor of death. Unable to breathe, I stumble out of the circle of light and run for the villa.

My sandals slap the stones as I bolt up the hill in the dark, panting and choking on tears. In front of the house the fountain glows like a beacon, the spouts from the open mouths of the golden jaguars spilling perpetually into the incandescent pool beneath.

Lucas catches me as I near the top of the incline. “Are you okay?”

I shake my head vehemently, refusing to look at him. “What do you think?”

The air must be cleaner up here a hundred yards away from the pyre, but I can still smell the stink of burned meat on my clothes, my skin, my hair.

“It’s intense,” he sympathizes.

Through my distress, I nearly laugh at the absurdity of the word, of any word, to describe what I’m feeling. Words are so small in the face of something so huge, so all-encompassing.

He grabs my hand and pulls me toward the fountain. “Come on.”

“What are you doing?” I resist.

But he has my hand clenched firmly in his as he kicks off his shoes and steps up onto the marble lip of the fountain, pulling me with him. I have no choice but to shed my own shoes and follow him over the edge, into the water with a splash. The pool is waist deep and nearly as warm as the air, a welcome relief from the smell of smoke and death below.

He releases my hand as he dives under, and I follow suit, my dress billowing around me in the chlorinated water. I come up only long enough to fill my lungs, then sink beneath the surface again, raking my fingers through my swirling hair and rubbing my face with my hands to purge my skin of the stench. I emerge refreshed to see Lucas standing beneath one of the jaguar’s spouts, his head tossed back, eyes closed. His white linen clothes are completely translucent and matted to his skin, outlining every muscle in his toned body, like the cover of the kind of steamy romance novel you have to hide on the train.

I rip my gaze away and swim to the other jaguar. With my eyes closed, I stand under it, allowing the powerful flow to massage my back.

“Better?”

I open my eyes to see him swimming toward me and, realizing that if his clothes are nearly transparent mine must be also, sink into the water. “Yes,” I say. “Thank you. I wasn’t mentally prepared, I guess.”

“I don’t think you could’ve been,” he replies, his eyes glistening in the light off the water. “We don’t have any framework to process something like that. Culturally, I mean.”

“I was thinking the same thing when we first saw the pyre this afternoon,” I agree. “Our lives are so sanitized, so detached from nature and the life cycle.” I realize as I say it how silly I sound. How privileged. “I mean, I’m one to talk, I couldn’t last five minutes down there, and I’m not saying we should start burning our dead on the banks of the Hudson, but . . .” I shake my head. What am I trying to say?

He regards me seriously, his gaze soft. “You can’t blame yourself for the culture you were born into. But you’re right. In the Western world we turn away from anything unpleasant, which gives us fewer opportunities for growth.”

I nod, feeling as though I’ve failed at being a worthy human. “We outsource everything uncomfortable so that we can focus on ourselves. It’s terrible.”

He shrugs. “It’s practical. We don’t bury people in our rivers for more reasons than we just don’t want to.”

“Right.” I sigh. How is he so grounded when my head is spinning like a tornado? “Of course. I just . . . I want to live more deeply, I guess,” I confess. “I don’t want to be the kind of person who runs away from a funeral pyre.”

He gives me a knowing smile. “You want to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life?”

“A modern-day Thoreau,” I confirm, demonstrating I know the quote, then immediately feeling gross for needing to demonstrate I know the quote. And why am I confessing all this to Lucas, of all people?

“Running away from a funeral pyre has nothing to do with living more deeply,” he says sincerely. “I mean, Thoreau was a transcendentalist, after all; he was more interested in empirical thinking than the physical world. He might very well have done the same.”

His steady gaze makes me feel even more off-kilter than the fact that I’m not totally sure what empirical thinking is.

I slosh to the edge of the fountain and hoist myself over the lip, my soaked dress dripping everywhere, to see Aguilar coming up the walkway, backlit by the blaze from the fire down below.

“Are you guys okay?” he calls as he approaches.

“Yeah,” Lucas responds from behind me. “We were having some trouble with the smell.”

“It’s powerful,” Aguilar agrees.

“That’s one way of putting it,” I mutter, wringing out my dress.

“I’ll leave towels outside the door,” he says, pointing at the main entrance. “Everyone is coming up shortly, then we’ll meet in the dining room for the feast.”

How the hell anyone can want to eat after roasting a human being is beyond me, but I nod. “Thank you.”

He continues toward the villa and I squeeze more water out of the bottom of my dress as Lucas climbs out of the fountain. “Is that your spirit animal?”

“What?”

He indicates my back. “The tiger.”

I can’t ever tell whether he’s messing with me or serious. “Yeah, maybe.”

“I think definitely.”

I point to the mass of dark ink on his chest and arm I can make out beneath his wet shirt. “What’s that?”

“It’s an Amazonian depiction of the ocean—homage to my dad’s roots.”

“And your love of surfing?”

“Yeah.” He holds my gaze. “You remembered.”

I look away first, focusing on the waxing moon that rises from the tree line on the far side of the lake, bathing the scene in silvery light. “Were you close with your dad?” I ask.

He nods. The distant sound of chanting echoes over the water.

“How did he die, if you don’t mind my asking?” I ask.

“Heart attack.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Thanks.” He wrings out his shirt. “It’s been tough, but I’m getting through it.”

I smile. “With therapy?”

“You know it.”

We slosh across the pavers and up the marble steps to the grand front entrance, where Aguilar has left two white towels in a woven basket just outside the ornate bronze door. I wrap mine around my dress while Lucas fixes the other around his waist, shedding his soaked pants beneath.

We push open the heavy doors to find a handful of Mandala members working to transform the giant dining room to the left of the domed foyer into a banquet hall, complete with flowers and candles. A few of them look up and smile curiously, perplexed by our soggy state as we scurry, dripping, across the intricately tiled circle and up the marble staircase.

“You can shower first,” Lucas says when we finally reach our room at the end of the long hall. “I’ll see if I can find us some dry clothes.”

I nod and step into the gold and ivory bathroom, where I spot a fresh set of white linen garments for each of us neatly folded on the countertop between the sinks. “Found them,” I call.

Standing under the torrent of warm water in the marble shower, I feel all the anxiety that had been buried under the intensity of the past few hours come rushing back. Kali was welcoming enough today, but she can’t possibly really be fine with me inheriting everything, no matter how enlightened she is. And what’s the real reason Lucas escorted me down here? Does he know something he’s not sharing with me? He said he’s told me everything, but I can’t shake the nagging feeling that’s not quite true.

I search my gut for who to trust, but my inner compass is going haywire, and I feel adrift, bumping up against my past. My memories of Paul are all tied up with who I was as a child, my memories of Lucas intertwined with the girl I was at eighteen, and I can’t help wondering if that child and that girl would be disappointed in the woman I’ve become. Or haven’t become.

Aware that time is slipping away, I reluctantly cut the water, towel off, and step into the dry dress, identical to the one I discarded.

In the bedroom, I find Lucas sitting on his bed shirtless, flipping through the bedside copy of Surrender.

“All yours,” I say.

“Thanks.”

I step out of his way as he rises and moves toward the bathroom, gripping his towel in one hand while sweeping his hair out of his eyes with the other. As he passes, I catch a glimpse of the circle tattoo beneath his navel peeking out from under the towel, and an uninvited heat wave shimmers through my body. The door clicks shut behind him, and I lie down on my bed staring up at the ceiling, frustrated by the undeniable pull I still feel toward him.

No. I stop myself. I’m being ridiculous. I don’t want Lucas. Of course I don’t want Lucas. I’m engaged! And I don’t even know Lucas—not really. We had a one-night stand. Years ago. That’s all it was, regardless of how it felt at the time. I’ve long since moved on. I’m just inappropriately lustful for some reason tonight, and he’s in my line of sight.

I call to mind the softness of Chase’s lips on mine just yesterday, picture his blue eyes, his aquiline nose. His beautiful shirts. He really does have incredible taste. So what if he insists on wearing a collared shirt to a rock concert? Opposites attract. Where I’m casual, he’s formal; where I’m flighty, he’s solid; where my family has no roots, his dates back to landed gentry.

And therein lies the problem: all my thoughts of him right now are tied up with my inability to fit in with his family. Lately I feel like I’ve been trying so hard to go along with what they want that I’ve forgotten what I want.

I know I’m not the easiest person to love. As much as I’ve altered my life to accommodate his, I still have hard edges; I’m challenging, defensive, impulsive. There was a time when Chase found my imperfections charming—appealing, even—but since our engagement, it’s like every part of me needs to be polished in the effort of molding me into an Ayres wife.

Now here I am with one foot in and one foot out of the relationship, paralyzed with doubt and terrified I’ll end up like one of Becky’s friends: maintaining my relevance by keeping up my appearance, but scared to leave him, for fear of discarding what could be my one chance at love, without which I’ll end up alone.

I open the copy of Anusara on my bedside table and flip through the pages, landing on a chapter titled “Everything You Need Is Within You.” Perfect.

Everything you need is within you because the Divine resides inside you. Only once you realize this will you experience true freedom. You alone have the power to transform your life; it is your choice to live an existence that is full of bliss or sorrow. To know your Self is to know the Divine.

Well, if that’s not fitting, I don’t know what is. Though the idea that knowing myself will give me freedom isn’t totally comforting right now, considering I’m having so much trouble deciding what I want.

“I think they figured out my size.” Lucas emerges from the bathroom in white linen that does indeed fit him better this time. He holds up my engagement ring. “Found this by the sink.”

“Oh.” Unaware I’d even taken it off, I slip it back on my finger.

“When’s the wedding?” Lucas asks.

I stare at the sparkly thing that used to make me so giddy. “Two years,” I reply.

His eyebrows shoot up. “That’s a long time.”

“Not my choice,” I say. Then, unable to stop myself, “I don’t really have any say.”

He sticks his hand under his mattress and feels for his phone. “Still there,” he reports. “Shockingly.” Sitting on the mosaic scarlet rug, he stretches a leg out in front of him and reaches for his toes. “Don’t brides call all the shots? Bridezilla and all that?”

“Not all women are stereotypes,” I shoot back.

“So you don’t want to have a say?”

“No, I do.” I spin the rock toward the inside of my palm and close my hand around it. “But my fiancé’s family is very particular.”

He snorts and switches legs. “If I ever get married, my wife will have all the say. I have enough sense to know I have no sense about that stuff.”

Unable to watch someone stretch without joining in, I move down to the rug and assume butterfly pose with my feet together, knees apart. “What if your bride has no sense, either?” I ask.

“Then I guess we’ll just have to elope,” he says. “Actually, if I did have any say, that’s what I’d say.”

I sigh, feeling my spine unkink as I lie back and stretch my arms above my head, staring up at the wide blades of the fan turning slowly above. Eloping sounds like heaven. To be so in love that you don’t even need anyone else there; all you need is each other? So romantic. If only Chase felt that way. “Where would you elope to?” I ask.

“A beach somewhere,” he answers without missing a beat. “So I could surf after, obviously.”

“Obviously.” I glance up just in time to catch a soft expression in his eyes as he looks at me. “So, who’s the lucky girl?” I ask, averting my gaze.

“No girl.”

“Why not?”

He shrugs. “I’m too picky, I guess.”

Too picky for me, apparently. I laugh to cover the twinge of regret. I wonder what was wrong with me, what I did to make him never call me again?

It doesn’t matter, I remind myself. It wasn’t meant to be. And now I have Chase.

“So what are you looking for?” I ask. “I have plenty of single friends.”

“I remember them.” He laughs. “Definitely not my type.” He lies on his back and bends his knees to one side. “I don’t know. Someone I can be myself with, I guess. Who doesn’t try to change me.”

His words hit me like a punch to the gut. “But what if you need to change?” I ask. “To grow, I mean.”

“Those are two different things.” His gaze is thoughtful. “Supporting your desire for personal growth is different from asking you to change.”

Everything in me wants to protest, but I can’t. He’s right. I know instinctively by the sinking emptiness in my chest.

“So, what do girls try to change about you?” I ask.

“Depends on the girl.” He sits up and runs his fingers through his thick waves. “The movies I watch aren’t intellectual enough or my friends aren’t cool enough. I surf too much. Yoga girl wanted me to become vegan and stop using deodorant. I dated this corporate chick who was on me to take up golf, for networking purposes. Everything was about achievement to her. She’d check her Fitbit after sex to see how many calories she’d burned.”

I guffaw. “That’s intense.”

“Yeah.” He leans back on his elbow to gaze at me with those deep brown eyes, and I try not to look at the tattoo snaking down his bulging biceps. I’m a fool for tattoos, though Chase doesn’t have any. I’ve tried to convince him to get one, but he refuses.

So maybe he’s not the only one in the relationship trying to change the other person.

“What?” I ask when he doesn’t stop staring.

“It’s good to see you,” he says.

I trace the movement of the fan blades as they go around without answering.

“I didn’t know what you’d be like now,” he goes on. “People change. I was worried you’d be high maintenance.”

“Because of my career?”

“And I read about your engagement online,” he admits. “Seemed fancy.”

I hate that the thought of him looking me up makes my stomach flip. “It is.”

“But you’re not,” he says. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see him still gazing at me openly. “You’re the same girl I met all those years ago.”

“I mean, not totally,” I say. “I like to think I’ve matured a little.” I allow myself to look over at him. “And I’m not a virgin anymore.”

He smiles. “I was there, you may remember.”

The shared memory hangs between us like forbidden fruit, sending heat creeping up my neck.

“Dinner’s ready.”

I jump at the unexpected voice and look up to see Aguilar standing in the doorway, watching us.

How long has he been there?

I scramble to my feet, relieved to be saved from the dangerous direction the conversation was headed in, and follow Aguilar toward the sound of chatter filtering up the stairs.