“Thank god,” Ripper says. “Took you long enough.”
They think they’ve successfully wielded the Corruption Solution against me. But they have no idea how strong my willpower truly is. When no one’s looking, I spit out the heart and hide it in my pocket.
*
Half an hour later we’re sitting cross-legged in a giant circle in the middle of Dr. G’s living room as Kenny pounds a pair of bongos, leading us and a bunch of strangers on “a vision quest.” Whoever was in charge of tending the petting zoo has abandoned post, and now the animals are running amok. Every once in a while, a stray goat saunters by and helps itself to someone’s hair. I keep an eye out, lest one come for my own pride and glory.
The tea has very clearly hit Matt, Ripper, and Dr. G—they’re moving so sinuously to Kenny’s drumbeats it appears their bones are Jell-O. While their dancing makes me grateful to be sober, there’s a moment when I glance at Hannah and I swear I can sense something other-worldly circling her. I have the bizarre thought that maybe it’s her aura, or her grief, carried like a mantle. And then I worry Dr. G has pumped drugs through the air vents.
I shift in the drum circle and our knees brush.
Kenny is verbally re-creating the experience of being expelled from a mother’s womb at birth (“You’re scared and confused, floating in a warm, dark space, then all of a sudden, there’s a light at the end of a tunnel”), and I can’t help butglance over and find Hannah’s eyes. They’re so shockingly blue they send my brain into high alert.
“Suit, eyes closed,” Kenny commands. “I’m going to share an affirmation imparted to me by my spiritual guru and Burning Man campmate, Chaos Skittles.”
I struggle, but obey.
“All of your life has been building to this moment.” Kenny’s voice turns rich and deep, the register he uses when singing backup for Hannah. “All the problems of your past”—he beats his drums—“the hurdles, the disappointments, the people who’ve hurt you, the ones you’ve hurt. All of it happened to bring you to this moment. You’re exactly where you’re meant to be. Gaia, Mother Earth, folds you in her embrace.”
When I open my eyes, Hannah’s squinting at me. “Are you crying?”
I touch my wet cheeks. “No.” Damnit, Kenny.
She grins. “You must be in your Happy place.”
“Oh, for sure,” I say, nodding along. “It’s definitely the drugs.”
But no one’s feeling the drugs more than Matt. He’s staring wideeyed at a woman with a mohawk on the other side of the drum circle, as if her hair’s some sort of nesting bird on the verge of breaking into flight. “I think we need to babysit the reporter,” Hannah says, and her voice snaps Matt to attention.
“I want to play truth or dare,” he blurts. My impression of him changes instantly: at the Bellmore, he’d seemed older and wiser than his youthful appearance; however, it seems the ayahuasca tea has turned him into a tall child.
Ripper snorts. Hannah glares at him. “We’ll play whatever you want,” she tells Matt.
I slap my hand in the center of the circle. “But everything is off the record. No taping anything.” Good god, these people have terrible instincts when it comes to reporters.
Matt’s eyes are dilated like some kind of cartoon character, but he manages to look wounded. “I would never.” He turns to Ripper. “Truth or dare?”
“As if you need to ask.”
“Dare, then.” Matt scans the room until his eyes light up. “The fire-eater.”
Distracted by Kenny’s drum circle, we all somehow missed the gorgeous dark-haired wizard in the corner. She slides flaming sticks down her throat in a demonstration pre–Happy pill Theo would’ve condemned as a fire hazard, but new Theo pretends to find enthralling.
“I dare you to let her do that to you,” Matt says, with an exuberant glee that tells me he wasn’t invited to many truth-or-dare parties in his youth and we’re all participating in his redemption arc.
“Who, Katrina?” Kenny’s alarmed.
“That’s Dr. G’s ex. She burned off all Kenny’s facial hair and swore it was an accident,” Hannah whispers. As she leans in, I catch her ocean scent, clean and mineral. “He was eyebrow-less for months. Kept making children cry.”
I think back to Bowie patting his eyebrows. “Thatexplains it.”
Ripper flattens his lips, like Matt’s dare is beneath him. “Piece of cake.” He gets up and saunters over in his tight pants. Hannah gives me a look. “Okay, Suit. Where’s your big speech about responsibility? Rip could light himself on fire.”
“I’m sure everything will be fine,” I say, eyeing her to see if she buys it.
Her mouth quirks, and for a second, it’s possible to imagine she finds me funny.
“It’s happening,” says Matt, and we all jerk back to Ripper, who’s kneeling with his mouth open, as the fire-eater—Katrina—slides in a small metal stick dancing with flames.
