When they arrived at the Sunday Meeting, Rhonda was sitting in his usual place in the semicircle of chairs. (Daniel winked at Lydia, as if to say “Told you so.”) Thus far, José was the only one who had graduated, but his absence made the room feel empty. There hadn’t been any newbies in weeks and when Maya asked the Porter about that, she said, “It happens. Actually, when you and Troy got here, we had more customers than usual.”
Then, in she walked—tousled, tiny, on edge.
Maya caught a glimpse of her on the afternoon the Meeting had been disrupted; when Annie rushed outside to see about the fuss (and to rescue Bumble), Maya left her seat to watch the little drama from the door. Now the very same girl tiptoed in, looking about as peculiar, morose and defeated as could be. Annie appeared surprised, digging in her purse for the newcomer’s hibernating Guide, even before she stood to give her a proper greeting.
She was short and malformed. It seemed like she didn’t have any shoulders, let alone a collarbone, and was very, very young, at least as far as Meeting standards went. She nodded a painfully shy hello to the group so they’d at least stop staring. Maya was instantly charmed, in spite of herself. When it came “Winston’s” turn—the name Annie introduced her by, though Maya heard the girl call herself “Honeychile” on the day she trespassed with her school friend—she candidly explained what was wrong with her. “I lisp on account of my still having baby teeth.” Then she puffed up her chest and proudly announced, “I have the same thing as Dustin, from Stranger Things.” No one but Violet (who blurted out, “I love that show!”) seemed to know what she was referring to. Winston-Honeychile went on to share her puzzlement at “whatever the fudge happened to me,” adding that she thought it was “really scary but kind of cool.” Annie told her they’d talk more about it privately when the Meeting ended.
Maya found herself paying extra-close attention to Dabba Doo when it came his time to share.
He wore his customary professorial tweed ensemble—and was shoeless, as usual. It was Maya’s opinion that all children liked to go barefoot; she idly wondered why Dabba Doo was the only one who had the brilliant idea. (She got the feeling Annie would put a stop to it if any of the others followed suit.) He told the room that he was becoming depressed—“not really depressed but a little worried. Not worried, but . . . concerned”—about the fact that he’d been there for so long yet didn’t seem to be any closer to “crossing the threshold.” He was afraid that he’d reached an impasse. Maya and Troy exchanged glances because Dabba Doo was expressing the same fears they were having themselves. “I can’t help but feel,” he said, “that the passion I had in the first months about reaching my moment of balance is beginning to fade. It pains me even to say it! But I do feel caught between worlds, so to speak—I seem to be half who I used to be and half Dabba Doo—half landlord, half tenant! I find myself sitting at home waiting for that child to just take over and give me marching orders! But he won’t, he won’t, he won’t. The boy just won’t, and I’m starting to worry he may never . . . oh, I know he’s here, it’s not that he’s gone away. I feel his feelings, think his thoughts, I even eat his precious gummy bears—which by the way, I have always loathed! But I only eat the green ones.” Everyone laughed. He turned to the Porter and said, “All that opens up a hornet’s nest of questions, doesn’t it?”
She smiled uncomfortably (so it seemed to Maya) and said, “I think it’d be best if we spoke after the Meeting”—an aside that was on its way to becoming code for the Deep Shit Ahead zone.
“I guess I’m kind of having the opposite problem,” said Violet. Annie actually sighed with relief—at last, some good news! As the young woman spoke, Lydia assessed her perfect Scandinavian features with a covetous adult eye; she’d always wanted to have that kind of beauty. “I’ve been feeling so strong and confident . . . what’s the word? Resolute. I think my moment of balance is getting really close. It’s just a feeling but it’s really, really strong . . . All I can say is, you better get my birthday cake ready, Porter! And can it please be angel food?”
Everyone oohed and ahhed, spontaneously volunteering the kind of cakes they wanted for their birthdays. After refreshments (“Winston” sat alone with her untouched lemonade and cookies), they read aloud from the Guide for a while. Then it was time for Rhonda’s birthday speech.
He wore a skullcap to cover the gashes on his head. So much seemed to have gone wrong of late that Annie could hardly conceal her thrill that a moment of balance had been achieved in the midst of “haywire”—that another one of her children had lost their blueness and would soon be reboarding for the final voyage.
“I want to bless everyone in this room,” he said, before turning to Winston, who stared timidly at the floor. “And I’d like to say a few words of welcome to the newcomer. It is scary at first but then gets cool, like you said. It gets very cool. So, trust the process. And trust the Porter. She’ll take care of you. Annie takes care of everyone!”
Maya caught Dabba Doo smiling at her and bashfully smiled back.
“It was wonderful having you here,” said Annie. “You were—are—a lovely, supportive presence.”
“Back at ya,” said Rhonda.
“Now, who would the landlord Ganesha wish to thank?” she said.
“Well, I’d like to thank my guru, the man who put me on the path to Kriya Yoga. Annie, I know you’ve said before that what we do in this room isn’t related to the spiritual—not directly—but I can’t help believe there’s karma here too. There: I said it! Whatcha gonna do, throw me out of the Meeting?” The room tittered, without exactly knowing why. “Too late for that! I guess I’ve already thrown myself out . . . And of course I want to thank—and say goodbye—to my folks, who gave birth to me. Would never have gotten this opportunity without ’em. And I especially want to thank my twin brother, who’s more or less doing life without parole. God bless you, Curtis. May you find peace in the madness of incarceration, and I know that’s possible. Because we’re all in some kind of prison. Most of the time it’s our heads. But even our bodies are prisons . . . So I guess it’s time to say goodbye to this body. I’m so grateful I had these extra few months to honor it.”
Annie smiled at the wisdom of her pupil’s words. Still looking into his eyes, she said, “And Rhonda? Your turn. Who would you like to thank?”
“First and foremost, Ganesha Ashanti Sinclair—oh my God, you rocked! Though I wish I’d had a landlord who was older . . . That’s probably just Ganesha still trying to say, ‘Don’t take me, girl, I’m too young to be a landlord, take someone else!’ But it’s true, Annie, I do wish it wasn’t Ganesha. He was way too young to have had a stroke. My grandma had one but she was sixty-eight. And she didn’t even die!”
Winston sporadically glanced from the floor to the players, uncomprehending but taking everything in.
“It’s time,” said Annie. She nodded to Violet (Lydia realized who she reminded her of: a less voluptuous Scarlett Johansson) and the gorgeous techie skipped to the table, eagerly lighting the candles Bumble had already stuck in the banana cream cake. “Tell us what song you’d like—your choice.”
He scratched his chin. “Well, it ain’t gonna be ‘Macarena,’ I can tell you that.” Everyone but Honeychile laughed at the remark. “Tell you what,” said Rhonda. “Let’s do something different. Since I won’t be seeing y’all again.”
“Just make sure we know the words,” shouted Daniel.
“Oh, I think you might,” said Rhonda. “Obscure as they may be.” Violet sat the cake down in front of him, on the little table the sentry brought over. He closed his eyes and softly began.
“‘Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me’—”
The others joined in, and sang the roof off.
He blew them out to raucous applause and then drew the palms of his hands together in prayer.
“Namaste,” he said softly.
After the Meeting, the Porter spoke quietly to Winston while a few others lingered. Maya and Violet girl-talked in a corner and Daniel made cordial conversation with Dabba Doo.
Annie draped a mothering arm around the girl’s shoulderless shoulders. The poor thing was shaking. The Porter made the required more shall be revealed pitch but felt like the captain of a ship with broken masts. She told Winston how brave she was to have returned and urged her to keep coming back—yet had nothing more in her arsenal. Winston let her cheek be kissed before slinking out the same way she slunk in. Maya smiled pitifully at her as she passed by, a smile that seemed to say, “So sorry about the absolute clusterfuck you’ve found yourself in—that we’ve all found ourselves in!”—but was focused on speaking to Annie. Accosting the Porter, she said, “I have something I need to say.”
“Dabba Doo is next, Maya. You’ll have to wait your turn.” Sometimes she had to talk to them that way. They were children after all and needed to mind their manners.
Maya balled up her fists in a fury and said, “Rhonda did something very, very bad.”
“Please lower your voice!”
“She killed someone she shouldn’t have—”
Annie looked like she’d been stung. “What are you saying?”
“Someone was there—someone else during her moment of balance—who had nothing to do with Rhonda’s murder! And she killed her anyway.”
“That just isn’t possible,” said Annie, in disbelief.
“It is, it happened. Ask my brother!”
The ship was foundering and the Porter felt herself going overboard. At the moment, further details—like how Maya and Troy had come upon such knowledge—were insignificant.
“It was wrong,” said Maya. “That’s not supposed to happen, Annie—is it?”
“I’m not sure.” She was wondering how much of “haywire” to divulge when her mouth broke the impasse. “But all of this may have something to do with my leaving.”
“Leaving? For where?”
“I’m—I’m dying, Maya.”
“No!” she cried.
“Please lower your voice.”
From across the room, Daniel and Dabba Doo turned to look before self-consciously resuming their conversation.
“What do you mean, ‘dying’?”
“I don’t know when, but soon.”
“Can’t you come back? Like we did?”
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“Why not?”
“It just doesn’t, not for Porters. Anyway, I’ve been preparing. I’ve known about it a long, long time.”
“But what will happen to us?” she implored.
The little-girlness of her entreaty broke Annie’s heart.
“You mustn’t worry, darling. You’ll be well taken care of.” Maya was weeping now. “There’s already someone coming—do you hear me, sweetheart? Someone’s coming to help and soon you will all meet the new Porter . . . and when that happens—when the new Porter’s here—everything will be made right again. So please be patient and please don’t worry! Be patient and trust, can you promise me that? Because you—well, you and your brother don’t have much time.” She grabbed Maya’s wrists. “And if you stop trusting, you won’t find the person who did this to you. Do you understand that?” Maya shook her head. “And I’d appreciate you keeping this to yourself. I’ll talk about it with everyone at the next Meeting.” Maya nodded distractedly. “I don’t want the others to know until I know a little more myself. You can tell Daniel—I expect you will—but no one else, because it will only upset them. Do I have your promise? That you’ll keep this to yourself until the next Meeting?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you.”
Maya screwed up her face in sorrow and remorse. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean it when I asked about what would happen to us! I didn’t mean to be so selfish.”
“Stop it now,” said Annie, hugging her. “I love you and everything is going to be fine. See you Tuesday. Now run along.”
The Porter nodded to Dabba Doo that she was ready for their conference. As Maya walked to the door, she passed Dabba Doo and her elbow brushed his.
“We need to talk,” she whispered.
For the final time, Ganesha Ashanti Sinclair went home to his subdivided loft in Core City, not far from Cliff Bell’s, the club where he occasionally played jazz.
After the moment of balance, he felt less like Rhonda—though it wouldn’t have been accurate to say that he felt more like Ganesha either. All identities, all forms, were receding. Annie once told him, “After the moment is done, you will come to know a new kind of serenity.” She said the feeling would be unlike any he had experienced “in this life”—and it was true. He tried comparing it to the peace he’d felt at the ashram in Bangalore but this was something else, otherworldly and indifferent. Impersonal . . . Again, his heart and thoughts touched upon his parents, his twin and all the people he had loved. He recalled his enemies too, real and imagined, closing his eyes to watch the magic lantern of characters pass before him—an extravaganza of poignant beings caught in the majestic dance of suffering and bliss, of birth and death, choreographed by the Source. Everyone was alive but everyone was already dead, like the tale Krishna tells Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita. He felt so privileged to have been chosen.
He made a final cup of tea.
He unfurled the yoga mat on the floor of the sparsely furnished living room. Before he lay in savasana, the corpse pose, he examined the grain of the wood floor that he had proudly sanded himself. It contained the universe.
Such was the last wonderment he had on Earth.