Star suppressed a smile. Good ol’ Bo.
“Tonight, as we have passed the sacred hour that symbolizes the orienting poles, and in deference to our new friend, sister, and devotée, I won’t ask you all to join me and sing our great hymn of praise to the pole, ‘O Great Magnetic Pole that Orients our Lives.’ I will simply sing the first verse to close our sacred session.” And then in a deep rich voice Basil sang softly, but loudly enough for anyone listening in to be attracted:
“O great Magnetic Pole that orients our lives,
when all direction’s lost, cut by sorrow’s knives,
O keep us now from wandering like he who only strives,
to know the peace you give us, as you orient our lives.”
“Amen,” said Daniela.
And then, with Star leading once more, they all said in unison, “Let the Pole orient you!” Then they hugged each other individually and altogether.
Through Daniela’s mind seemed to race a dozen thoughts at once. In this one moment she felt her inferiority disappearing. This was it! What she had needed all her life was not to be smarter or more devout or more accomplished—what she needed was orientation. That was all. There was nothing wrong with her. She wasn’t just a pretty face who feared age with the trauma of a sports star. Her life wouldn’t be over when lines began to appear and the deep richness of her hair had to be replaced with that from a bottle. Look at Peep and Bo, she thought. Obviously in their forties, but vibrant and alive. They thought nothing of age. Nothing of money. Nothing of anything but the rich spiritual peace that came from being oriented with the universe at last. Now, she herself, Danny—no not Danny, but Daniela—a new maturer Daniela—could look straight into the eyes of the decisive Ruby, the daring and adventurous Benjamin—why, she gasped, she could even look face to face at the spiritual Josefina and even be more spiritually attuned to the universe than was her sister: the all so venerated “Reverenda” Jo. Oh, it was rich. Rich!
“Dear, one more thing I have to warn you,” Star said leaning toward her, her face full of concern. “You are wearing amber.”
“Yes,” faltered Daniela. “Is that bad?”
“Well, no, not exactly, but the problem is that amber has a great magnetic quality. Oh, it doesn’t affect the masses who are disoriented, but, now that you are beginning on the path to true enlightenment, it could be a serious drawback for you. You see, the magnetism of common things can conflict with the sacred magnetism of the Magnetic Pole. Things like amber can pull you back.”
“I don’t want that,” said Daniela, startled and concerned. “What should I do?”
“I can take them for you, so you won’t be tempted,” said Star kindly.
“Oh, thank you. Here, here,” cried Daniela, hurriedly taking the amber earrings out of her ears. “You are doing so much for me. Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Oh, no, dear, we Polarians—for that is what we call ourselves—never ask for money. You saw no collection plate at our brief orienting service, did you?”
Daniela shook her head.
“Eventually, as you deepen in the truth, you may want to share something to help our mission enlighten others, but always remember—and tell everyone who asks—it is a joint mission. We are all in this together.”
“Together,” agreed Basil.
“Yes, yes, together—always,” added Ismael Balenzuela.
As Daniela walked back into the casino, she felt warm and found and oriented altogether. Ben simply waved her away. Los Diamantes del Mar Hotel was not so far away she could not take a taxi or even walk if she wanted to think. It was a beautiful night. It might take her a half hour, but she had so much to think about. One thing she was agreed upon with herself: She would not tell Jo or Ruby anything about this. She would keep this discovery and this secret strictly to herself. What Daniela did not notice, however, as she walked slowly home, was that she had not gotten her promised piña colada.
“Nice earrings,” said Basil approvingly, as he and Star and Ismael went laughing back to their rooms.
“Yes, I thought they’d go great with my green dress,” explained Star.
11
All night long, Jo was restless and her dreams were troubled. She woke up feeling cramped and queasy. She felt like she expended all her effort just to get out of bed. Her head felt sleep-drugged, her chest constricted, her arms and legs heavy. She managed to drag herself to the window and peered between the heavy curtains out across the water of the bay of Neiba, toward the stately white walls of Martin Garcia Point, where she saw the sunrise struggling with an equally difficult effort to free itself from a ponderously heavy cloud cover. She knew how it felt.
“Uhhh,” she groaned and told the dawn, “I feel terrible.”
The last several days had been so hectic. The stark interruption of sorrow and sudden travel piled itself on an already overwrought schedule of overcommitments. It added poundage to the already thick tonnage of launching her fledgling ministry to immigrants who needed so much to survive in the swift, urban, East Coast northern American society that demanded they hit the pavement at a run to keep up. All of this had begun factoring itself in with her new but now central spiritual dimension that had become the mediator for what she chose to do—determining to what she could say yes, as usual, and to what she now had to say no—all to baffled, uncomprehending stares. It had finally overwhelmed her. All this redefining of her role to people she had already served before, Jo wondered, maybe this was all a mistake?
She groaned again and leaned wearily on the window sill. How could she reinvent herself when the redefinition was only somewhat clear to her? Small wonder it was thoroughly murky or completely missed by most of those with whom she had already forged a relationship. She was their community organizer, returned to them, in their eyes, as a “nun” now—a kind of one-stop spiritual and social shopping that streamlined the meeting of their many needs of enculturation.
Jo groaned again. Two years of pending doubt came pouring down on her like a sullen rain, soaking her resolve, leaving her self-image totally bedraggled. I guess it’s because I’m here, she thought, back on safe ground in my childhood retreat. Here, where I’ve always felt safe, where I have to explain nothing about the way I look or the things we value or the weight of our heritage that always marked us off from the kids among whom we grew up in Richfield. Multicultural enough to avoid out-and-out prejudice, still the mix in her adopted hometown of Richfield had invited cliques and marginalization. “Where are you from?” some of them had asked when she was very young. “Where’s that?”
Then the tsunami of Dominican immigrants had swept across the state and the Republica had become familiar and even notorious in some spots. But even among the Dominicans, Jo and her siblings had been marked off as indios. Each of the siblings had sought to close the gap of heritage in her or his own way. Ruby had become a sports star—driven, excelling, hard, directed. Daniela had her beauty, and it got her into parties and into school plays—always in decorative, nonspeaking parts. She was not the football queen—her personality was not strong enough—but she was a member of the court—a “lady in waiting.” And that term had summed up her life so far. Danny as well summarized herself as a “looker,” and so she played that through high school like a trump card. But
