The Theory of Opposites (11 page)

“Do you like your job?”

“Huh?” she answers, still typing.

“Your job? Do you like being a lawyer?”

“What?” She looks at me vaguely. “What? Oh, I don’t know. Sure. It’s fine.”

She returns her attention to her phone.

I order a mint lemonade (it sounds like a healthy match to my quinoa) from the waitress, and Raina asks for a double espresso. Finally, she beats her Blackberry at its own game and tosses it across the table.

“You would think that we were saving lives or something here,” she exclaims.

“Speaking of saving lives!” a voice booms from behind her, and we both look up. The legendary Oliver Chandler, homeopath, vegan, super-yogi to the stars, and current resident of Mumbai, in the flesh. He is practically glowing, literally, like a glistening of sweat is encasing every inch of his skin, but somehow it adds to his handsomeness, like he intuited just the right amount of sheen for the afternoon and his body complied. His brown hair is richer than mine, his eyes darker too. Jesus, he was good at everything.

“You’re saving lives these days?” Raina asks. She stands to hug him.

“Give me an hour with you, my darling sister. Yours will never be the same.” He leans over and kisses me, then sits.

“William, no offense, but you look like shit.”

“And it’s nice to see you too, Ollie.”

“Listen, if a brother can’t tell a sister when she looks like shit, then the system is broken.”

“My husband left me.”

“All the more reason for you to look fabulous. There are other fish in the sea.”

I think:
Theodore.
And then I regret thinking that because I also want Shawn to throw himself on his knees in front of me and beg to set things right, set them exactly as they were before.

“Oliver,” Raina interrupts. “We haven’t seen you in over a year. I had to check your Twitter feed to discover that you were in town.”

“It was last-minute.” He grabs a menu. “I’ve heard raves about their quinoa salad. Gaga told me I had to order it when I told her we were meeting here.”

“Lady Gaga does yoga?” Raina sounds dubious.

I can’t decide which I’m more impressed with: that Oliver trains Lady Gaga or that Raina actually knows who she is.

“Lady Gaga does everything,” Oliver says, like we’re supposed to know what that means.

“How’s India?” I ask, resolving to forget both Theo and Shawn entirely.

“Hot as balls,” he answers, waving down the waitress. “But you know, if you build it, they will come.”

“I have no idea what that means,” Raina says, ordering the tuna salad, no mayo, pesto on the side, and hold the bread too. I order the tuna salad with mayo, with pesto and with bread. The quinoa seemed like a good idea only in theory. Even if endorsed by Lady Gaga.

“The ashram. Did you see that it was written up in
Travel and Leisure
as the number-three yoga retreat in the world?”

“We didn’t,” Raina says.

“Well, it was,” he shrugs. “So I built it. And they came.”

“So then why are you here? Shouldn’t you be saving souls in a tent filled with incense?” She sniffs. “Or pot? Because don’t think for a second that I can’t smell the pot right now.”

“Raina, sister, I don’t understand the hostility,” Oliver says in this super-annoying tone that he must reserve for the end of his classes when everyone is all “oooommm,” and “inner-peace,” and “the light that guides me is the light that guides you.” He continues: “And that’s not pot. It’s patchouli oil. It’s good for my digestion. I’ll bring some over for Jeremy sometime.”

“There’s no hostility,” she says, though it sounds very much like there’s a lot of hostility. “We just don’t see you for a year, and William and I are left to deal with things like Mom and Dad taking
lovers,
and it would be very much appreciated if the prodigal baby boy were around to, you know, lend a hand.”

“Not figuratively, of course. They have that taken care of.” He laughs. Raina’s nostrils flare.

“Why is everyone calling me William all of a sudden?”

Raina sighs and pinches her nose, just as her Blackberry echoes again.

“Christ!” she yelps, then grabs it and walks toward the front of the restaurant while typing.

Oliver and I both fall silent for a moment until I say, “Ollie, really, what are you doing here? It’s a little unexpected. And I know, like, I don’t follow you on Twitter or anything, but you could have given us a heads-up.”

He drops his chin to his chest.

“I know, Willa. Shit, I know.”

When he looks up at me, his sheen is gone, his beautiful cheekbones suddenly looking skinnier and less beautiful than just a moment before.

“I’m in a little trouble. Just…I mean…it’s nothing. I mean…it’s something, but…well, don’t tell Mom and Dad.”

“Tell them what?” Raina says, already done with her mini-crisis. She reaches into her purse and pulls out a prescription bottle, unscrews the cap and pops a pill down the hatch. Then she empties another out into her palm and slides it my way.

“Self-medicating?” Oliver asks.

“No,” Raina utters. “It’s good for our digestion.”

“I make no judgments.” The waitress delivers him a hot drink that smells distinctly like a perfect blend of grass and urine. Oliver takes a long sip that appears to stir some sort of nirvana within. “Oh man, Will, have you tried this? It’s exactly the cure for your skin right now.”

I consider protesting the insult but that’s just the family way, so instead I merely shake my head
no
. Also, it really does smell like the inside of a restroom in Central Park.

“Don’t deflect, Oliver. What sort of trouble are you in?” Raina persists. “Everyone else may buy this ridiculous Kama Sutra thing, but don’t think you’ve fooled me.”

“I’d be offended if I couldn’t just breathe through that. I try to leave each person I connect with just a little better, a little happier, Raina. Can you say the same? Does the light inside of you shine like it shines inside of me?”

“Oh Oliver, cut the crap.”

“Fine.” His head droops. “Yogi Master Dari asked me to invest in the retreat, then find some other investors, who then had to find other investors…” He flickers his hand in a little spiral, as if to indicate…and so on. Or maybe it’s to indicate that he’s crazy. I’m not totally sure.

“A pyramid scheme!” Raina cries. “You’re involved in a pyramid scheme!”

“Holy shit,” I exclaim, and then reach for the urine drink because I need a drink and my mint lemonade was never delivered.

“It wasn’t my fault.”

“Of course not,” Raina tuts. “In this family, it never is.”

—

As we’re leaving Pain, just as I am sliding into my Xanax haze, we run smack into Alan Alverson. He introduces himself to Raina and Oliver as
Alain.
Naturally, I therefore call him Alan.

“I wish we were on better terms, Willa,” he says. Then to Raina and Ollie: “I practically worship your dad. Willa knows. I would just love to be on better terms, to learn more about the man behind the miracle.”

“He’s not Jesus, you know,” I say.

“I wouldn’t call it a miracle,” Raina adds.

“You guys,” Ollie weighs in. “Don’t be bitches. Dad’s great.”

Undeterred, Alan presses on. “Like, I know that it sucks that you got fired and everything, but it’s like your dad says — if you hadn’t been texting in the meeting and Hannah didn’t have a coke problem, and Dependables didn’t have totally unreasonable client expectations, and if it hadn’t all imploded at the right time, I wouldn’t have gotten the promotion. It’s all part of the Master Plan Way! I mean…it’s brilliant!”

“That’s very noble of you, Alan.”

“Not noble,” he says. “Just the facts.”

“Hmmm,” Raina says.

“Cool dude, I get it,” Oliver says. “ I roll the same way.”

He slaps Alan on the back, like they’re comrades, like the little bastard didn’t slide right into my job.

“Well, good seeing you, Alan.” I step onto the sidewalk, my brain a little foggy, my limbs a little loose.

“Hey, did you hear? Hannah’s in rehab.”

“Really?” I turn around.

“Yeah, Meadow Air up in Connecticut. Evidently, she was way worse than anyone realized.”

“Who’s Hannah?” Oliver asks.

“My old boss,” I say.

“Meadow Air is a good one,” he replies, which seems totally normal coming from him.

“Anyway, you should write her. Or something.” Alan makes a face like he doesn’t care all that much.

“Have you?”

“Me? No. But we weren’t friends. But you should. Everyone makes mistakes, you know.”

“I thought no one made mistakes. Isn’t that what my dad says?” I remember that sext of her boobs that she sent me, of the false EPT test, of Shawn leaving.

Alan scrunches up his forehead and stares at the sky, contemplating. Then his gaze makes its way back to us, and he shrugs.

“Hell if I know. I just like your dad’s book.”

12

“What is one thing you hate more than anything else in the world?” Vanessa asks.

It’s Friday again, and we are power walking as if nothing has changed, even though everything has. That Shawn hasn’t disappeared into the ether, that he and I haven’t given up trying for kids, that my parents aren’t having some sort of late-in-life sexual crisis, that my brother might not be indicted as the next (not-so-masterful) white-collar mastermind, and that adult diapers didn’t ruin my life.

Nicky made it safely to Palo Alto two days ago, and now I’ve been left to face the utter aloneness of my situation. I wake up to silence; I make my coffee in silence; I check Facebook in silence.

Accept.

Ignore.

Deny.

I still haven’t written Theodore back, though I’ve googled “testicular cancer” enough to apply for a grant at the AMA.

I offered Oliver our spare bedroom but he grinned — evidently not too,
too
concerned about the FBI investigation into the funding of the Kalumdrali Retreat — and said the Tribeca Grand was comping him. All friends of Jennifer get comped, he said. So I took a stab in the dark and said, “Lopez?” and he said, “Aniston,” and Raina said, “Of course.”

Nicky emailed yesterday that Palo Alto was “kind of cool,” but that there were a lot of people who thought they were really granola who drove Priuses but who also wore Rolexes and fancy yoga clothes all day, and “he found that kind of fucked up.” I naturally responded and corrected his language, but he just replied and said, “Aunt Willa, this zipline in Uncle Shawn’s office is fucking awesome!” And attached a picture of himself hanging ten while soaring over Wired2Go’s open floor plan.

I didn’t write back and rebuke him because I’m not the kid’s mother, after all.

“Hello, are you listening to me?” Vanessa asks, as we stop at the crosswalk on Central Park West. It’s a grim late June day in the city. All low clouds and gray lines, the humidity swaddling the hurried New Yorkers as they scatter every which way. But I didn’t have anywhere to hurry to, no one to hurry with.

A red-faced toddler marches up next to me and punches my calf.

“Ow!”

I look down and see him, unrepentant. He narrows his eyes, like I’ve done something in his short, miniature life to offend him.

“Sorry,” his mom half-heartedly apologizes. “You know how it is.”

The light turns, and just before we step forward, the boy slugs me again.

“Jasper!” the mom reluctantly reprimands him as Vanessa and I leave them behind.

I glance back, just before we enter the park and see little Jasper screaming on the corner, his mother pulling him in for a hug.
Motherhood is complicated
, I decide. You can tell a kid not to use “fuck” all you want, but that doesn’t mean it will change anything, that he’ll actually listen.

“Seriously, Will, hello! Have you heard anything I’ve said? This is important.” Vanessa is now a half-step ahead of me, her ponytail swooshing through the air to match her stride.

“What? No. I’m sorry.”

She stops suddenly, and I lean over and massage my calf.

“Willa, I’m serious: are you committed?”

I want to say: Committed? To what? Meadow Air? Can they find a spot for me? A nice bed to lie down on and sleep for a hundred years?

“To the book?” I ask instead.

“Yes, to the book. To embracing the ‘
theory of opposites
.’
To running counter to your dad’s ideas. To daring yourself to run counter to them in the first place.”

“I am,” I answer, though I don’t think either of us really believes it.

“So what is the one thing you hate more than anything in the whole world?” She resumes her pace.

“Pâté. I find pâté to be truly revolting. Also, recently, sea bass. Bad associations with sexual imagery of my parents.”

Vanessa halts again, rests her hands on her waist and dips her chin to her chest.

“This is going to be much harder than I thought.”

“What? You asked! I really, really hate pâté! And sea bass!”

“I had something else in mind.” She squints toward the sun, the light reflecting off her cheeks like she’s some sort of goddess. “Pack your bags. Be ready in the morning.”

“Disney World? Because I’ve been surprised with that before. It’s less great than you’d think.”

“No.” She shakes her head but smiles. “Come on, this book has nothing to do with fairy tales.”

—

Excerpt
:

New York Times
bestseller,
Is It Really Your Choice?
Why Your Entire Life May Be Out of Your Control

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SECTION ONE: EMBRACE THE MASTER UNIVERSE WAY

Summary: Throughout the book, you will hear me refer to what I call the Master Universe Way. Others will choose to call this “God’s plan,” or perhaps “divine intervention,” or simply, “that what will be will be.” Please know that while my preferred term is MUW, and should you choose to sign up for our online course — Master the Master Universe Way! — that you will be asked to use our preferred phrasing, any name or title or moniker that you choose to give this phenomenon of “God’s plan” while reading this book is a-okay with me.