9

MANNY SAT AT THE HEAD OF THE TABLE, AND MIA IN the chair to his right. Guy and I sat beside her, and the remaining couples sat across from us. The foot was empty. Manny, I noticed, had one hand on Mia’s leg and another leaning on the arm of the chair at his other side where a woman with long warm curls sat. Aster, with the gardening shears. She seemed to lean her upper body toward Manny, as well. They were only inches apart, and though my suspicion was beginning to take shape—liaisons and infidelities are to be expected in both cults and social clubs—commonplace affairs were not the whole story. They are not the main secret kept in Bellinas.

The wine was poured—dandelion—and the shuffling and settling fell first into murmurs and then into a waiting quiet. Guy switched between rubbing my back and the top of a thigh, trying to copy the intimacy of the other couples or unaware of his mimicry. His eyes, along with everyone’s, were on Manny, who, basking in the attention, held the silence for a few seconds longer than necessary.

It was then that I saw the portrait of Mia, a life-size nude on the wall behind the wood-burning stove. It was tasteful, of course. I shall go to my grave extolling her good taste. She stood upright against a dark background. Her arms were raised and crooked behind her head. Her hair fell to the top of her thighs, curling around the side of her hips. With the barest hint of a smile at the corners of her mouth, she looked at the camera with her head tilted down. She wore only a wedding ring, and a small bouquet of yellow five-petaled flowers hung between her fingers. A white cat slept beside her feet.

“Another week in Bellinas, another week in paradise,” Manny said, not really addressing anyone but himself, it seemed to me. Nonetheless, the table shifted more toward him. With some effort, I did the same. The wind whirred, banging the chimes out of their melody and into chaotic clacks. Its blast reached my face, so much colder than I expected. I felt on edge. One. Two. Three. Four. There is a point where the counting no longer works.

“My people. My community. As if we weren’t the luckiest crew in the world already. Tonight we’re joined by Guy and Tansy Black. Give them some love, they’re not just our family, our cousins, but they’re a part of this new family we are all here to co-create in Bellinas.”

Icy licks slid under my clothes, and a heavy gust of wind settled on my chest. I smiled. “Always smile,” Constance the Elder would say. “You never know when a little politeness might save your life.” The group clapped lightly, and Guy lifted his hand from my leg to join them in their applause. He was always eager to join a group.

“Welcome to Bellinas, and welcome to the Bohemian Club,” said Manny to another round of clapping and cheering. “For the newest members of our special family, we’ve got something pretty rad planned for tonight.”

I picked up a fork. With a display of food arranged before us, I’d grown hungry and impatient to do something with my hands that was not clapping. The impulse to push Guy’s sweaty palm from my leg was unbearable after it returned.

“Actually, Tansy”—Manny looked my way—“we offer a blessing before we eat. High-vibe house, remember?” He winked at me like we had an inside joke. For all of me, I couldn’t help but think him just a bit charming for the first time.

The guests laughed, and Mia gave him a look of adoration such as I have seen only in works of biblical art, a look that Manny returned to her. Having seen her naked—my eyes migrated to the portrait on the wall—I thought I understood why Guy’s looks at me revealed disappointment rather than devotion. I could grow my hair as long as Mia’s, I remember thinking with a sigh. I could wear flimsy dresses and abandon my shoes. To change my fundamental composition would take longer, but I would try to be more pliant and pretty. That was my oath to myself at the table of the Bohemian Club. They were possibly a good influence on Guy. Praising the virtues of marriage in their community. At the very least, he copied the affections given by the men to their wives, and when I wasn’t so anxious as I was this first night, I enjoyed the gestures and touches I admired in other couples.

At the table, I almost thought I heard my grandmother’s voice—“There’s worship, and there’s foolishness”—and I was embarrassed to imagine what she would think, were she to observe this scene. What would she think of my life, overall, I wondered often. She had never met Guy. The first years we were together, I’d loved him in part because I thought my grandmother would approve of him. His education. His interest in art. Since our marriage, I was less and less sure of everything.

A nudge at my arm came from Aster. She stretched her hand out, and I laid my palm into hers. I noticed that she, like all the women, wore a necklace of gold with a charm of gleaming abalone. Their abalone was so important to them. Around the table, the group linked hands to make a somber and limp ring.

“To the spirit of the sun, who blesses with us with his warmth, his abundance, and his strength to bring our dreams into reality, we say thank you. To the moon, who blesses us with her beauty and fertility, we say thank you. To the wind, who cleanses our auras and keeps us cool, we say thank you.”

His eyes were closed, as were those of his congregants. I looked over to Guy, who nodded slowly with eyes shut and a look of righteous contentment, as did everyone. He looked like a stranger then. A beholden follower.

“This is the key to life. The key to having everything we could ever want or imagine. We already have everything, am I right? By detaching ourselves from the evils of mainstream society, we get to live a pure life. A life of art and faith. Of love and light. The universe wants us to have our every desire. All we have to do is trust and get out of the way.” A pause in his ministrations, and I could hear the bells under the table as he adjusted his legs. The key in my pocket pressed into my thigh.

I might have argued that it was Manny’s invention, Zembla, that tethered most of the so-called mainstream, workers, friends, families, business, to one another in the very impure state that he railed against living in his private life, but I shall avoid politics, as Constance the Elder taught me. That Zembla had not yet been declared a public utility and regulated by the government was nothing short of criminal negligence by politicians. But I digress. What was wrong with a little gratitude? Guy accused me of being unwilling to give their beliefs a chance. I think those beliefs now, as I did at the table, a patchwork of gibberish. Your thoughts create your reality. Think it so. If this written testimony serves any purpose, though, it must show that I tried to believe, if only for him. I would have done anything to please him, and closed my eyes to listen with everyone else.

“Every ray of sunshine was created just for my skin. Every bird sings just for my ears. Every flower blooms just for my eyes.”

The couples around the table repeated these words in unison, loud enough to dim the sound of the bamboo wind chimes. My husband mumbled along as one does to a song on the radio whose chorus is not quite remembered. The volume of the voices turned into an unexpected buzz, and I started at the vibration. Opening my eyes and the twitch in my hands, trapped in those of Mia and Guy, were involuntary. I saw Manny looking at me, though I could not tell, as was so easy during the afternoon walk, what he was thinking. The bamboo chimes at the open window knocked and clacked, resting for no more than a breath before a gust collided the pieces and swept through the room. The wind growing louder and louder, as it always did, during the night.

This was their typical closing to prayers and blessings, I learned. It was offered constantly over art projects and babies, at picnics and dinners. Manny sat, and Mia stood to pick up the wooden utensils. She served him first from the plate of the lamb already sliced. From a neat stack of pink abalone. They were constantly eating abalone. The women daily stroked and pulled the pearls from the white and black ropes of muscle clinging to the opalescent shimmer inside rough brown shells. Then, from the salad of greens covered in flower petals. The petals I recognized as orange nasturtium, like those I had picked on midsummer. The white cat I’d observed sleeping in a purring lump beneath a veil of heart-shaped leaves leapt to mind, and I looked over to the portrait of Mia.

After Manny sat, the women stood one by one clockwise around the table to follow Mia’s example and serve their husbands. Then we served ourselves from what the men did not take. The women placed dainty servings of the food they had prepared on the plates cast and painted by Mia. Always following the same order. A hierarchy, where the newcomers went last. I served myself as the men finished eating.

“This is wonderful, Mia,” said Guy, his mouth full. I could not disagree, whatever his manners. Her choices were unsurprisingly perfect.

“Thank you. I picked the herbs for the marinade from the garden in the solarium and let everything sit in the window overnight. The air here is really something special. The men dove for the abalone, of course.”

“Don’t let her be so modest,” added Manny. “Mia slaughtered the lamb herself right here in the sculpture garden.”

“If you’re going to consume an animal, it’s best to be a part of the less pleasant processes as well. We have an arrangement with a shepherd near Point Ray. It’s really a beautiful ritual. All the girls gather, and I offer blessings to Spirit and to Manny. Aster here leads us in a song to ease the darling off into sleep. I doubt it even feels the knife. Next time”—she turned to me—“I’ll come find you to help.”

It seemed as if everyone expected something of me that I couldn’t give, even simple conversation. The muscles in my face were perpetually sore from all the daytime smiling I did in Bellinas. What else can you offer when words fail and politeness feels demanded for survival?

Here you see that she spoke openly of some rituals. Manny chose to interpret her violence as domestic devotion, a beautiful and natural act, while Mia was invoking larger forces. It is hard to parse what was secret and who knew what in Bellinas, but Mia’s deception relied on Manny’s complacency. She knew to amplify whatever image her husband preferred at different moments to stroke the predicable areas of his pride. Happy people who wish to remain in that state do not go looking for reasons to feel otherwise.

Clearing my throat, I reached for a bottle of wine. I had not noticed that the women drank nothing but Mia’s fragrant tea and water collected from a spring nearby. I filled my water glass with the sweet, syrupy dandelion wine.

“Mia,” I stumbled. “I didn’t notice your portrait on the wall earlier. What a stunning picture.”

“Isn’t it something?” Manny answered. “Mia wanted to put it somewhere more private, but I wanted to show her off. She’s too beautiful for only me to enjoy. Besides, it’s nothing the world hasn’t seen already.”

The same shadow of a smile she wore in the picture appeared at the table. “Whatever Manny wants,” she replied, turning to me. “Thank you, darling. One gets used to being on display in my line of work.”

The table listened as the Roses spoke, and again I felt as if I had done something wrong.

“I’m sorry. I know we’ve all met briefly before, but I might need another round of introductions.”

“How forgetful of us, Mia,” said Manny, who gave his wife a reproaching look.

“It’s my fault,” I jumped in to say. Who among us has not watched another woman take the blame for something readily and with no choice? “I threw everything off earlier. I’ll begin. I’m Tansy, Guy’s wife.” I had no other introduction, no other identity, only a new understanding that my other identities had all been in service of this one. My expensive education and study of the Classics. My learning languages no longer spoken to read the words of men no longer living. My unremarkable editorial career at a fashion magazine that grew thinner every month, like the young girls it featured, as stories were rebranded as online content for the internet that had been apparently disrupting my cellular structure all along. Each of my identities had only been trimming for the role of wife. Accomplishments I’d taken great pride in were nothing more than lines on a résumé, just as the lamb in front of me was served alongside dishes meant to heighten its flavors. My sense of self shrank further. I sacrificed myself again and again in Bellinas.

There were Iris and Wyatt, another former model and a musician. Lily and Richard, again a model and musician. Aster, an artist who had done some modeling, and Aldus, an artist-slash-musician. They lived on the Big Mesa, each couple in their own seaside cottage, and they walked to Rose Manor daily for activities or meetings of the Bohemian Club.

“Have you all been living in Bellinas for a long time?” I asked of the group.

Again it was Manny who answered. “They came up here when we did, Tansy. I bought a bunch of the old houses, and Mia and I wanted to rent them to our most high-vibe amigos.”

“Has anyone ever lived in the guesthouses where we are?”

Mia answered this time. “Not for very long. We invited a couple I knew from Los Angeles. From the influencer community down there. Just married, like you. But it didn’t work out.”

“Oh?” I asked, and felt Guy’s foot knock against my leg. A gust sent the bamboo wind chimes into a clatter.

“Their bodies washed up at the surf break. Naked and swollen after several days missing. The authorities think they went diving for abalone and drowned, but who knows? The ocean is full of dangers,” said Mia, turning to look at me. “Like the park.” The wind always picked up at unexpected moments. Did you know it is not the moon but the wind that creates the waves in the sea?

“That’s what happens when you’re not respecting Mother Nature,” said Manny. “She’ll show you who’s boss. Nothing more beautiful and powerful than a mother.”

There was no silence at night in Bellinas, but nobody spoke for the few breaths I counted out. One. Two. Three. Four. The chimes roiled and the trees rippled with the gusts of wind and crashing waves. Again, I thought of the brochure and its advice. Never turn your back to the ocean. I shivered at a blast of air from the open window. It must have been a very cold way to die. Everyone seemed to fall into a trance around the table. The rise and fall, up and down of the coast is nothing if not hypnotic. California is a wonder.

“You’re all flowers,” I said slowly, attempting to recover from my transgression. A lick of wind swayed the candlelight’s shadows against the wall, and the flames on the table seemed to hitch and shudder, as breath catches in a nervous throat.

“All women are flowers, Tansy,” Manny returned, more softly than his usual boastfulness. The whispering recalled the quiet menace of waking up in the bedroom alone with him an hour ago. “In our community, women are named to reflect their nature.” Of all the possible responses anticipated, this was not one of them.

“Those aren’t your real names?” Looking at the women one by one, I expected them to be staring at their plates, why I am not sure. Perhaps I expected them to be embarrassed. This man had renamed them. Only recently renamed after my marriage, I was still horrified on their behalves. But they sat tall and smiling, their only movements the wisps of golden threads twinkling in their dresses and their golden hair whipping in the wind.

“Of course they’re our real names,” Aster said. “Our other names didn’t reflect who we really were. They weren’t given to us by someone who knew us inside and out. Until Father M saw us, we didn’t know how beautiful and powerful we were.” That was the first time I’d heard his wellness-brand sobriquet used by one of his followers.

“One day, it’s my dream to have my flowers blooming across all of Bellinas,” said Manny. “Soon, I think, the whole town will be made up of members of the Bohemian Club. You know, I’ve been giving your name a lot of thought, Tansy.”

As I had saved her a few minutes before, Mia leapt with grace to save me by pointing out to her husband the obvious.

“Tansy is like me, my love.” She placed her hand on her husband’s arm as delicately a rose petal might fall on grass. “She’s already called after a flower. We have a patch of yellow tansy coming up in the garden. It’s actually quite a useful herb, good for all kinds of things.”

“It’s a family name,” I said weakly. “My mother loved to garden.” My grandmother had in fact shown me where my mother grew damiana flowers, the same exotic yellow blooms Mia held in her portrait. I had not thought of Mia’s full name as what it was, merely a reflection of her appearance. Damiana flowers were as open and beautiful as Mia, as glamorous and unusual. My mother grew them alongside her hydrangeas and hibiscus, as well as the more homely tansy and mugwort and chamomile. She called me Tansy and loved to garden. Those were the main things I remembered of my mother. And, of course, my last words to her.

“What were your names before?” I couldn’t help myself, in spite of the glare I could feel on my cheek from Guy.

“There was no before,” said Aster with a smile more genuine than any I had produced that evening. Blissful, in fact. All lightness and love, like the look of a child or a saint.