The Second Rule of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery (Dharma Detective: Tenzing Norbu Mystery) (22 page)

I told her the address, and to dress warmly. I called ahead for a reservation, took a long, hot shower, and changed into a long-sleeved flannel shirt, my favorite deep blue cashmere sweater and my best black jeans. I checked my reflection in the mirror for any obvious fashion faux pas.

“Big guy.” I liked the sound of that, especially coming from Heather. I ran a damp hairbrush through my cranial hedge, gave Tank a handful of dry treats, and I was good to go.

Ten minutes later, I was parking in a space right off the street, above the larger lot. The “creekside dining” arrow on the rustic carved wooden restaurant sign pointed me toward a wrought iron archway, announcing the name of the restaurant, Inn of the Seventh Ray, the metal scroll embroidered with small violet lights. A hearty chorus of creek frogs supplied a natural rhythm section to the gentle flute and violin duet piping away over the sound system.

Heather must have broken a few speed limits getting here—she was already waiting at a little table next to the hostess, opposite a large stone Buddha cupping a flickering votive candle in one palm. The heady scent of jasmine permeated the air, though whether it emanated from Heather’s glowing skin or a squat purple candle by the hostess, I couldn’t tell. Heather, too, was in jeans; hers were dark blue and did something to her hips that was surely illegal. Thigh-high brown suede boots and a brown leather jacket completed the impression of casual elegance and sexy confidence. She met my eyes and smiled, her face cupped by shining curtains of blonde hair. My heart did a little flip in my chest.

“Hello,” I said.

“Wow,” Heather answered, her arm including the whole setting.

I had asked to be seated by the creek. Our hostess led us down rustic steps and past two more Buddhas. We crossed the central dining area where scattered tables of murmuring guests surrounded a large, bubbling stone fountain, thick with flowers. Branches danced with points of white light, and gauzy white canopies created cloistered pavilions. White tablecloths, violet napkins, white wrought iron chairs, wispy wildflowers, here a Ganesh, there a Mother Mary, and everywhere, invitations to be touched by natural beauty and open to timeless mysteries.

I thought I’d chosen the inn with my stomach, but once here, I realized I had also chosen with my heart.

The hostess sat us at an intimate table for two, overlooking the chuckling creek. Heat lamps blanketed us from the chilly air.

“Enjoy your meal,” our hostess said.

Heather fingered her violet napkin. “What’s the color supposed to represent?”

“Celestial fire,” the hostess answered, her eyes shining. “Some say, new beginnings.” She filled our glasses with water.

“Double-reverse-osmosis,” she said. “Filtered with alkali. Enjoy.”

She left the table. ?”Whoa,” Heather said. “Should I drink it or worship it?”

We dug into a basket of bread that was still warm from the oven

“There’s a teeny tiny part of me that is tempted to leap on the table right now and juggle pom-poms,” Heather whispered to me, after a waiter had taken our wine and appetizer orders. “Spiritual settings do that to me sometimes.”

“Pom-poms?”

“Ah, yes. I’m a girl with secrets,” she replied. She touched my hand lightly. “Seriously, though, this is amazing, and you’re right, I love it.”

“It started out as some sort of mountain retreat in the thirties,” I said. “Died and came back as a gospel church, then a garage, then a junkyard, until these guys took over. Now it’s a gourmet restaurant, dressed as a happy hippie bride. I live ten minutes away, so I do take-out when I want to treat myself. How’d you get here so fast, by the way? I thought you lived in Santa Monica?”

“I do. But I’m staying at a motel in Malibu for two days, right off Topanga Canyon. I just had my condo painted, and I’m giving it a couple of days for the new paint smell to get cleared out.”

That sounded promising.

The waiter returned with our appetizers and a bottle of Adelaide cabernet. I sipped, nodded, and he filled our glasses.

“I love the cabernets from Paso Robles,” I said to Heather. “Something about the soil there seems to give the reds a combination of lively zip and deep earthiness.”

Heather gave me a curious look.

“What?”

“You’re an odd monk, that’s all.”

“Ex-monk.”

The waiter delivered our shared appetizers: raw flax seed crostini with some sort of olive, pesto, and macadamia nut spread, and a salad of organic baby lettuces, spiced walnuts, and figs.

I spread a crostini thick and handed it to Heather. I made another, and crunched. My mouth exploded with crisp and creamy, soul and spice.

“Oh. My. God,” I heard from across the table.

For a few minutes, we communicated with low, appreciative moans. Heather was still an enthusiastic eater, I was again pleased to note.

I took a sip of wine and studied the lovely woman sitting opposite me. She wasn’t wearing glasses tonight, and it made her face somehow more vulnerable. Her azure eyes sparkled in the flickering candlelight. She grinned at me, and then returned to her food with focused pleasure. I wanted to know more about her.

“How did you find your way into pathology?” I asked. She looked up from her last bite of salad. Her expression made me want to say it differently. “Let me rephrase,” I said. “Why pick a career that deals with death? You seem like one of the most alive people I’ve ever met.” She smiled at that. Her smile faded as she considered her answer.

“I loved my grandfather very much,” she said. “He was a widower, and he lived with us in Minnesota. He died when I was twelve, very suddenly, in his bed. No one would, or could, tell us why. ‘Natural causes’ is what our family doctor finally concluded, but it didn’t make any sense. Gramps was healthy as a horse; Doc Gordon said he had the heart and lungs of a much younger man. Anyway, he was only in his late sixties when he died, and it sucked my father into a tailspin, one he’s still riding.” Heather’s hands gripped each other. She put them in her lap. “Dad’s about the same age my grandfather was when he died. Every time we talk on the phone he acts as if it may be the last time. It breaks my heart.” She took a small sip of wine. I listened with every pore. “That experience shaped me. Some might say warped me, but I feel like this is my calling. Someone has to speak for the dead and maybe bring peace to the living, you know?”

“I do,” I said. “I really do.”

“Plus, I find it weirdly fascinating,” Heather added. “Especially the mysteries, like Marv.”

I didn’t want to get into shoptalk. Not tonight.

“So your father’s still alive?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “He and my mom retired. They live out here now, in Manhattan Beach. I’m their middle child, the only girl. I see them once or twice a month. They’re really sweet. I think you’d like them.” She laughed. “My mother is obsessed with celebrities. She can’t believe I don’t run into Keith Connor or Angelina Jolie every day. Sadly, the only celebrity I’ve laid eyes on is Lindsay Lohan when I was emptying trash at the morgue, and Mom doesn’t think that counts.”

Our main courses arrived. Heather had ordered a sweet pea risotto, with a medley of mushrooms mixed in. I had settled on an angel hair arrabiatta; I was craving the fierce bite of chili flakes. Again, we ate with shared concentration.

“Whatever seventh ray-gun vibe they’re laying on this food, it’s working,” Heather said, after a bit. “I’m getting totally stoned, and it’s not just the wine.” She dipped another hunk of bread in olive oil and waved it at me. “Okay, your turn. From what Bill says, your childhood was pretty out there.”

I was reeling a little, trying to keep up. I asked her what Bill had told her.

“That you grew up in a Tibetan monastery, and your father works for the Dalai Lama.”

“Close,” I said. “My father’s one of three head abbots at the Dorje Yidam Monastery. That makes him part of a council of lamas who advise the Dalai Lama on theological matters.”

“A spiritual version of the Joint Chiefs of Staff?”

“Exactly.”

“But aren’t monks supposed to be celibate?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, “but there are exceptions. My father was married to a Tibetan woman when he was very young, long before he became a lama. She died in childbirth, along with the baby, and that’s when, and probably why, he became a monk.”

“Poor man.”

“Yeah, well, he’s also a brilliant man. He rose through the hierarchy fast. Then along came my mother . . . “ My tongue turned to felt. I sipped water.

Heather touched my wrist lightly.

My voice tightened. “My father was forty, living his dry, monkish life, when temptation arrived at his doorstep in the form of a dewy-eyed American less than half his age. Valerie was a free spirit, and she walked right into a huge irony. She came to India on fire with a desire for spiritual liberation, and ended up pregnant and yoked for the rest of her short life to the chilliest of men.” I pushed my plate away. All I could taste now was bitterness. “My father’s first wife was a cousin of the Dalai Lama’s birth family, so he got an official blessing to re-marry. Not that the marriage lasted. She fled to Paris to have and raise me, and he went on with his life as if nothing had happened.”

“That’s quite a story.”

“It gets better. I’m pretty sure my father regretted my existence from the moment he got wind of it. As for my mother, she did her best, but she was young, single, and totally overwhelmed. She sent me to Dharamshala for six months out of every year as soon as I could walk and talk, but she never found her own feet. Instead, she replaced her dream of spiritual transformation with chemical substances.” I rearranged my silverware on my plate. “Valerie was a daily drinker and pill-taker. She overdosed when I was thirteen. I moved to Dorje Yidam full time.”

“Oh, oh, you poor thing.”

I couldn’t meet Heather’s eyes. “Yeah, well, I took my vows, and made a formal commitment; it was the only way my father would have me—as a novice monk. I worked and studied for five more years. If it hadn’t been for my two best friends, Yeshe and Lobsang, and a nightly escape into my contraband copy of
The Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes
, I would have lost my mind.” A small twinge in my chest reminded me—I still hadn’t solved the communication issue with my friends. They didn’t even know about Heather . . .

“So what happened?”

“Oh, well, I finally escaped to Los Angeles when I turned eighteen. Another irony. I was sent to America to teach teenagers how to meditate. Instead, I guess you could say I learned how to retaliate, by going to the police academy. I’m not cut out to be a monk—I never was.”

Heather touched the scar on my left temple. “Apparently not. Is that a bullet graze?”

I smiled. “Another long story.”

“We’ll get there,” we both said at the same time. Anyway,” I said. “All I ever wanted to be was a detective. And here I am.”

“And here you are. I’m glad your dream came true.” Her gaze deepened, and the invitation was clear and strong.

“So, um, would you maybe like to come stay with me tonight?”

She smiled. “You read my mind, detective.” She stood up. “Be right back.”

I added a pint of lavender ice cream to our tab and included a hefty tip, paying without a twinge; another recent aspiration come true.

Heather traversed the dining area back to our table, leaving in her wake a pattern of admiring—or assessing, depending on the gender—glances. I stood, proud to be the target of her smile. We walked out hand in hand.

The drive was short, one quick turn off Old Topanga to Topanga Boulevard proper, and a couple of winding curves up the canyon to my driveway. Heather’s lights remained close behind me.

As I drove, I wanted to reach across time and space, grab my father by the shoulders and shake him.
See?
I wanted to say.
See how great my life has turned out?

“You know nothing,” my father had roared at me, the night before I left for Los Angeles. “You cannot possibly understand the implications of your actions!”

“You mean the way you did, with my mother?” I had shot back.

“Quiet! Have some respect. You are too young and ignorant to know the truth of things!”

“Maybe you’re too old to remember what truth even feels like!”

I could still taste the rush of glee I’d experienced proclaiming my rightness. But this time I felt a second rush, the hot, dark tang of shame. My father and I had been equally caught up in the great drama of needing to be right. He was acting out of that need, but so was I. Underneath each of us lay whole worlds of unexpressed emotion. At the time, I was terrified I’d never escape from my vows, wherever I lived, never experience a world outside of my father’s rigid precepts. As for my father, faced with me, his careless accidental son, he probably felt deep regret, along with the fear that trumped all others for the ambitious man: what if my existence hasn’t made the slightest bit of difference in the world?

I pulled into the carport and sighed. I had a lot to learn before my second rule became second nature. I was still doing daily battle with my ferocious attachment to rightness; just ask Bill.

Heather was standing by the big eucalyptus, taking in the tree-spired nightscape: the dark silhouettes of scrub oak and balsam, the amber glow of houses tucked throughout the canyon, and the distant, inked-in ocean.

She turned to me.

“You live here.
This
is where you actually live.”

“I wake up grateful, every morning,” I admitted.

A coyote chortled in the distance. Heather wrapped her arms around herself.

“Ten?”

“Yes?”

“Do you ever, I don’t know, do ever feel like your angle on time and space isn’t quite right?”

I realized she was asking a question that wasn’t really a question. “Can you tell me what you mean?” I said.

She shook her head. “I don’t know if I can. I’ve had this experience since I was a little girl. It’s like I’m in a dream but I’m fully awake. Like now. I’m standing here next to you, and, we’re talking, and there’s this stream of thoughts, but there’s also this other reality. Like two different dimensions, but wrapped in one. Does that sound crazy?”