Stephanie Evanovich - The Sweet Spot

“Coffee’s on,” Gertie said from behind her and Amanda jerked. She had removed her hat. Her face was weathered from years of sun and had lots of laugh lines. Her forehead furrowed when she exclaimed, “Where are my manners? You look soaked to the skin. Let me get you a towel.”

Amanda sat down at the kitchen table, comfortable with the distance between herself and the television. She took a deep breath, and whether it was because of the environment or sheer mental exhaustion, it worked. By the time Gertie returned and she dried off, Amanda felt a serenity that had been inaccessible since that fateful day when she picked up the phone and it had all come crashing down around her.

“You know,” Gertie said as she moved about the kitchen, “I’ve seen you for days sitting and staring off at the ocean. If you don’t mind my saying so, people who spend that much time alone on a beach usually have a lot on their mind. I just thought maybe you’d enjoy a little break in your routine.”

Amanda could almost feel another cosmic wheel turning. There wasn’t any point in lying, especially if this lady was the answer to the prayer.

“I just broke up with my boyfriend,” Amanda said, satisfied with the white lie.

“Sorry to hear that. Slacker?”

“No!” Amanda was quick to defend Chase, then caught herself. “It’s complicated.”

“Men usually are.” Gertie laughed. “How do you take your coffee?”

They sat at the kitchen table for most of the afternoon as the storm raged outside. Over coffee and then lunch, Amanda was introduced to exercises that involved tranquility and little else. Gertie pulled out two miniature Zen “gardens,” which essentially were small boxes of wood with a rim about an inch high. Inside the box was finely grained white sand, a few highly polished stones. Each garden also had a tiny rake made out of thin, tightly woven bamboo. They puttered around with the rakes in the sand intermittently while making chitchat about nothing in particular. It was pacifying to delicately drag the bamboo claws through the sand, make designs around the stones. The stones were polished so smooth that no grains would stick to them. She’d stop for a while but it was impossible to not take it up again. Amanda soon felt comfortable enough to talk about the restaurant, and it segued quickly to cooking. Gertie didn’t probe and focused instead on broader topics. She admitted to not owning a computer, but she did have an iPad she rarely used and an old-style flip cell phone.

“Gotta keep up with the times,” Gertie said.

She was laid-back and nonjudgmental on most subjects, something she credited to her tenure as a nurse and to seeing firsthand just what a miracle life was. As the afternoon wore on and they tended their little gardens, Amanda felt all her angst dissipating. Enough to consider opening up a bit more, maybe even confide in this total stranger with kind eyes and a peaceful soul.

“I miss the boyfriend a lot,” Amanda said sadly, testing the parameter of the subject, “It’s mostly my fault.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Gertie replied easily. “It usually takes two to tango. And if you miss him, why don’t you just call him, extend the olive branch?”

“It’s not that easy,” Amanda said. “There’s a story behind it.”

“We all have a story,” Gertie pointed out. “What we don’t have is limitless time. Seems a bit pointless to make a decision and then spend the rest of your life second-guessing it. It sounds like this relationship has really put a damper on your chi.”

Amanda knew what chi is. According to Taoism and the other Chinese thought, chi is the vital force is believed to be inherent in all things. It is the balance of positive and negative energies in the body. It was that knowledge that lent itself to Amanda’s conclusion that every time she tried to venture away from hers, catastrophes were likely to follow. To hear Gertie say it made perfect sense.

“I think mine could use a little feng shui,” Amanda admitted.

Gertie studied Amanda for a moment before announcing, “You know what you need?”

Amanda grimaced uncomfortably. That particular question was one Chase had asked her playfully a hundred times. The answer to it was exactly what had landed her where she currently found herself.

“What?”

Gertie was already reaching for the nearby phone, mounted old-school to the wall. “Drum circle.”

GERTIE TOOK AMANDA inland to the house of friends. There Amanda was introduced to three women and one man. Their ages varied, but Amanda guessed the youngest to be about fifty. Like Gertie, they were all mellow and easygoing, dressed casually and comfortably. The hostess led them to a windowed sunporch in the back of her house. Fold-out chairs were arranged in a circle in the center of the room. Along the wall were a dozen drums of various shapes and sizes. There were big freestanding drums and smaller handheld bongos. Everyone picked out a drum and moved to a chair. Amanda chose a medium one.

“What do I do now?” she whispered to Gertie after taking the seat next to her.

“You play your drum.” Gertie smiled at her, saying nothing more.

Amanda hesitated, lightly running her fingers over the skin on the top of the bongo that was wedged between her legs. The other members of the circle began to play their drums while she watched for a minute. Some held their drums differently, like under their arm. One drum was big enough to sit on the floor independently. Some members closed their eyes while others seemed to enter into a trance, staring off into space. All were unconcerned about the others in the room. Amanda tentatively tapped her drum.

The sound was barely heard within the sounds of the other drums. Then she tapped it harder. The vibration reverberated from the drum between her legs, and she patted it several times in a row. It felt good to hit something. It was as if all her anger and frustrations about her current situation were being called up to the surface. She banged her drum harder. Chase popped into her mind. Suddenly she could see the allure that spanking held for him and what it was like to be on the other end of it. She thought about his secret, which he dragged her into without warning or permission. How he seduced and charmed her before introducing her to his fetish and then converted it into hers. How he made it the touch she sometimes wanted most. It didn’t take long before she was beating her drum over and over, picturing his ass and then his face as she let out all her unexpressed feelings of having no control and things she couldn’t change. All the insecurity and responsibility he had bombarded her with since he first walked into her life and insisted she share his. By the time she was done a half hour later, she had broken out into an exhaustive sweat. And she was the only one left drumming.

She looked at the other members of the circle. In her frenzy, she had forgotten they were there. They were all waiting for her to finish up, all with small, knowing smiles. Drum-circle newbie.

“Good job,” Gertie said as she and the rest of the members got up and returned their drums to the wall. Amanda did the same, but awkwardly and with the general sense that she had done something wrong. They were all placid while she had to catch her breath. She remained quiet as they enjoyed water flavored with mint and the others spoke of local goings-on.

“We’ll see you tomorrow?” the hostess asked politely as she walked them to the door.

For the next five days, Amanda and Gertie went back to the drum circle. With the exception of the hostess, it wasn’t always those she had met the first day. But everyone she met was gracious and accepting of her. No one was the least bit interested in her backstory, or even if she had one. They weren’t interested in forcing their histories on her. They were all very meditative and introspective, always talking and acting positively and in the moment. She stopped worrying about who might or might not recognize her.

And for five days, Amanda continued to beat the living hell out of her drum. During that time, she focused mostly on Chase. She used the opportunity to view him in a different light. As the entitled and spoiled cocreator of the mess her life had become with shades of he was a total package complete with pluses and minuses. She left each drum circle mentally and physically exhausted, all anger depleted. Gertie would drop her off at her house and she would immediately fall into a deep and dreamless sleep. Amanda would wake up the following morning refreshed and calm. She started acknowledging his part in their fiasco instead of blaming only herself.

On the sixth day, something changed. Amanda wasn’t angry anymore, with herself or anyone else. Beating the Chase drum no longer held the same savage appeal. She had finally realized that Chase Walker wasn’t some superhero or demigod, but a flesh-and-blood human being, complete with imperfections and subject to making mistakes. Just like her. And when she finally allowed him to be a mere mortal, she began to hear the sounds of the other drums. She started to find beats and rhythms, something that seemed to have escaped her previously. When the circle was done, she wasn’t sweating and heaving, but as placid as the other drum-circle participants. It was a significant change and it felt great.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” Amanda said to Gertie as they drove home.

“I know.” Gertie smiled.

“How do you know?” Amanda asked, surprised by the older woman’s response.

Gertie paused before explaining. “When you are in a drum circle, the objective is to find balance, to share the rhythm and get in tune with yourself and each drummer. To form a group consciousness by feeding off the energy generated by the other members. It becomes a collective voice that emerges from the individual members as they drum together. Today you became part of a beautiful voice. Before then it was all about working out whatever issues you were dealing with on that poor drum.”