hands were so soft and warm and perfect and my hand was just sitting in between there all happy like, yeah.
Finally I said, “I’m L.J.”
“I know,” she said.
That’s a good sign, isn’t it? That she knows my name. I think it’s a good sign. I don’t know how it could not be a good sign, so I’ll keep thinking that it’s a good sign.
I said, “We actually met a couple months ago. At Lucky’s. I was playing darts and—”
“You remembered!” she said. “I was starting to think I must not have made much of an impression.”
That’s totally a good sign.
And now I know her name. Tanha.
I didn’t learn too much more about her during our mock readings. She had the inverted King of Swords in her eighth position and the moon card in her sixth position, so apparently there’s somebody close to her who’s immature and, if she keeps going in the same direction, somebody will deceive her in some way, but that’s about it.
I had the moon card in my eighth position; that’s never good. Apparently there’s somebody lying to me right now.
* * *
Another thing that sucks about training is that we all take our lunch break at the same time, so it kind of limits my opportunities for one on one time with Tanha.
Tanha Tanha Tanha.
I figured if I sat at this empty table in the back, maybe eventually she would see me and come back here and say, “Hey, do you mind if I sit here?”
But instead, Viking Boy came and sat down right next to me—or, actually, right next to the chair I’ve got my feet on—and now he won’t . . . stop . . . talking. Seriously.
I thought if I took my notebook out and started writing, he’d eventually get the hint, but so far it hasn’t worked. I mean, I’ve been writing for the last—what? two minutes? five minutes? ten minutes?—and he’s been talking the whole time. I don’t even know what about.
Right now, he’s saying that he’s usually shy, if you can believe that, but the medication he takes makes him more outgoing and he’s not sure if he likes it because the old him is inside there somewhere and the old him can see the new him and he’s not sure if the old him likes the new him and what’s wrong with being the shy version of himself, anyway, because that’s the real version of himself, even though the doctor said this is an improved version of himself, but it doesn’t feel like the real version of himself and why should he have to accommodate what society wants him to be, anyway? Why can’t he just be the real himself? He wasn’t hurting anyone. And on and on.
Holy crap.
Everybody else in the whole break room is completely quiet. They’re probably waiting to hear what kind of bizarre weirdness he’ll blurt out next. This morning, he spent pretty much the whole fifteen-minute break telling some pregnant lady why momma dogs eat the afterbirth after they have their puppies.
I’m guessing that’s why nobody else has sat down at this table.
Normally I’d just get up and leave, but I don’t want everybody to think I’m a jerk for abandoning him. I’m pretty sure everybody’s staring at us. I don’t want to look up because that’ll just encourage him—kind of like, you know, how you’re supposed to not look at homeless people and pretend like you don’t notice them. That’s the strategy I’m going with now, anyway.
It’s not working.
I keep thinking he’s about to run out of things to say because he’ll pause for a couple seconds, but it’ll just be to take a breath. Then he’s right back at it. “Reverend Marpa said you carry your notebook around all the time because you had panic attacks when you were in grade school. Is that true?
“Writing therapy didn’t work for me because it made my shyness worse.
“Do you think he really is a reincarnation of the real Marpa? I guess he could be. The original Marpa brought Naropa’s teachings to Tibet. That’s what he’s most known for. Marpa the translator. But he also helped Milarepa purify his karma—he made him build and tear down three towers. That’s kind of what Reverend Marpa’s doing now, so I guess they could be the same person.”
Have a guy build some towers, make a long-distance call to Australia . . . yeah, that sounds like the same thing.
“Hey! are you writing this down? You just wrote that down, didn’t you? Maybe you did, I can’t tell. Your handwriting is even worse than mine.”
Pretty soon, I’ll have to look up and ask, “I’m sorry. Did you say something?” Not yet, though. Not yet. I’m still holding out hope that Tanha will come over and say Hi.
* * *
King of the Hill is on and it’s the one where Bobby keeps yelling, “That’s my purse!” before he kicks someone else in the kiwis. It’s probably the best episode ever. It’s even funny when you’re only listening to it.
But Viking Boy just slapped me on the leg, and that pretty much ruined the moment for me. He played it off like it was just a harmless, doesn’t-mean-anything, guy-on-guy leg slap, and so I pretended it was nothing, too. But still.
He’d been holding up his hand for a high-five, and I pretended like I didn’t see it—which was kind of hard, considering he kept waving it in front of my face—but then, just as I was about to look up and say, “What?” he went for my leg instead.
I mean, granted, it’s a funny episode, but I’ve never thought something was funny enough to slap someone else on the leg. Unless it’d be hot Tanha with her super long hair. Pretty much anything would make me laugh hard enough to touch her on the leg. I could be watching C.S.I. or some other super-unfunny show and I’d be like, “Ha-ha, hot Tanha with the super-long hair, isn’t that funny?” slap, slap.
Tickle, tickle. Rub, rub. Kiss, kiss. Squeeze, squeeze. Unzip. Unsnap. Lick, lick. Nibble, nibble. Pull, pull. Thrust, thrust. Yes.
Nice image. But I didn’t want Viking Boy to be like that with me.
I’m going outside to smoke.
June 11
Apparently Trainer Tim was pissed at me for not paying attention during his awesome PowerPoints, so to punish me or teach me a lesson or whatever, he got a tape of the call I got all my PINs on. He didn’t mention any of this at the time; he just said, “Okay, as promised, we’re going to listen to a few actual calls.”
It took me a while to realize it was me, because I wasn’t really paying attention, for one, but mainly because I sound way totally more dorkish than I realized.
When we took our break, Tim was like, “L.J., could I talk to you for a second?”
And then he went into this whole thing about how he was trying to teach me a lesson since I’m never listening and
