Page 36 of Counting the Days

Rhea felt a moment of hesitation; it was intimidating to walk into such a cozy tableau of firelit bonding, but knowing these were the same people with whom she had just screamed into the void made approaching them feel easier than it should have.

“There you are.” Wild Eyes appeared out of nowhere. “I was gettin’ worried about you.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry, I fell asleep.”

“Yep, this place’ll do that to you.” Wild Eyes muscled one of her eyes shut, which Rhea assumed was a wink and meantI know you ran to your room and sobbed ’til you passed out.

“I have your purse. And I made you a plate right before they stopped dinner service.” Wild Eyes gestured to a table on which sat Rhea’s purse and a plate of congealed garbanzo bean stew, vegetable stir-fry, and, to Rhea’s delight, deep-fried chicken strips.

Rhea almost hugged Wild Eyes.

“Oh, thank you so much. I’mstarving.”

She sat down and inhaled the food while Wild Eyes whispered, seemingly desperate to share the emotional breakthrough she’d experienced that afternoon. It turned out that Wild Eyes had never had an orgasm, but she had not known that until today.

After everyone had screamed from the depths of their being on the dance floor, the leaders had the whole group lie down on the ground for the rest of the session. During that time, Wild Eyes felt something break free deep inside her body. Rhea was struggling to digest the cold food and the fact that Wild Eyes hadclimaxed for the first timeduring dance therapy.

Due to Rhea’s almost constant role of listener, she was often on the receiving end of far too much information. When she was pulling into a beach parking lot, the attendant started crying because his brother had just found out he had stage-four cancer. Rhea listened for five minutes before he reluctantly handed her a parking pass.

As she was describing the peculiar smell her garbage disposal was emitting to her plumber, he confessed hehatedbeing a plumber and was only continuing because he was afraid his wife would leave him if he switched careers.

When she was helping a woman buy a sweater, the woman divulged that she had been raped in college.

Rhea knew far too much about everyone, and they knew almost nothing about her. Wild Eyes was the exception; although she did dominate their conversations, she seemed to see right through Rhea.

After she was done telling Rhea her dead husband was never able to satisfy her, she turned around and yelled, “Danny, I found her,” then turned back to Rhea and said in a low voice, “He was worried about you too,” then fired off one of her crazy-ass winks.

Danny looked up and covered any vulnerability with a calm expression. He smiled at Rhea and said, “Glad to have you back,” then returned to his conversation with the unknown man.

Wild Eyes resumed her hushed tone. “Cece and I have been trying to figure out how we were gonna get you kids alone together.”

“Cece?”

“Oh, I hope you don’t mind, I only told her, and she knows it’s a secret,” Wild Eyes said as she gestured over to Uh-Huh Same.

“That’s Cece?”

“Yeah, she’s great. We bonded at dinner, you’ll love her.”

“But doesn’tshelike Danny?” Rhea whispered, leaning into the middle school lunch scene she was trapped in.

“Cece? LikeDanny?” Wild Eyes guffawed, then hacked like someone who may have been a smoker for most of their life. “Cece’s gay.”

Rhea looked over at Cece, softly crooning “Harvest Moon” while Gary strummed along.

“Cece’s gay.” Rhea said this as if she of course already knew that.

“We think it’s so romantic. You might’ve just met your soulmate at a soulmate workshop,” Wild Eyes whispered.

“Oh no, we didn’t meet here, we met in L.A. We just ran into each other here.”

Wild Eyes stared at Rhea, dumbfounded. “Whoa, you ran into each otherhere?At a soulmate workshop?Look at this—chills.”

She showed Rhea her goose-pimpled arm. A laugh escaped Rhea; the laugh was partly for the absurdity of her new best friend, whose name she did not know and at this point could not ask. She was also laughing at her unhinged imagination for painting Uh-Huh Same as some kind of villainous man-stealer, when she was, in fact, a friendly lesbian. She was laughing at how truly bizarre her life had become and laughing because she was starting to enjoy it; if Esalen was a cult, she was pouring herself a small glass of Kool-Aid.

Wild Eyes noticed Gary packing up his guitar and nudged Rhea. Then, to Rhea’s complete shock, Wild Eyes made a subtle bird whistle to Uh-Huh Same, who looked over and immediately got it. Uh-Huh Same let out a loud yawn, winked at Rhea, and announced to everyone she was going to bed. The woman workshop leader and Gary held each other in a long embrace in front of the fire, then said good night to the seekers before they walked off hand in hand. The group slowly dispersed until the only people left were Rhea and Danny…and that unknown man who was now Rhea’s number one enemy.

Rhea sat alone, scrolling through her cellphone. She had no texts, no emails, and no calls. Waking up from a long nap and being reunited with her phone, only to learn no one had tried to contact her, created a hollow feeling that only scrolling through her phone could soothe. She tried to listen to Danny and the unknown man’s conversation but only got a few words here and there.