June 1976
On Star’s second evening on the mountain, a hard rain came down, pounding at the roof, almost drowning out the sound of the
record playing in the living room. The air was summer-storm thick and the floor was sticky from the humidity. Blue was putting
away the dinner plates while everyone was fussing in the living room. Sweet Jane tore past and ran into the downpour to the
garden. Blue watched through the kitchen window as Jane rushed around with her scissors snipping herbs as the rain pounded
down. Jane made a dash back—literally running with scissors across the muddy grass and up the steps. She threw open the door
and gasped, water running down her arms and legs, her red-blond hair turned to copper and dripping on the floor.
“It’s Star’s night,” she said by means of an explanation. She tiptoed damply over to the counter and set down freshly cut
lavender, mint, and lemon balm. “It’s time. Dean just told us to get things ready.”
“Already?”
Jane grabbed the dish towel to give herself a cursory drying off and reached to the top of the refrigerator to retrieve a repurposed jam jar.
“I did a reading about it,” Jane explained, extracting seven shriveled mushrooms from the jar. “We got her at exactly the
right time. Dean agreed and said we needed to do her tonight. Can you get a pot of water boiling? About three cups.”
Though she found she was slightly offended that Star was being initiated so soon after arriving, if the cards said it was
time, it was time. Blue had always had an interest in tarot, and since being there, that interest had grown. Jane was teaching
her how to read the cards, and Denver lifted a beautiful blue deck for her on MacDougal Street. (Though they shared everything
in the house, tarot cards were different—they were infused with the spirit of the reader and belonged to that person and that
person alone.)
Blue lit a match to get a burner going and put a pot of water on the stove. Jane chopped the mushrooms up into tiny bits and
ground those bits to a powder using the back of a spoon. When the water was at a sloppy, bubbling boil, Jane turned it down
to a simmer and added the mushrooms and herbs to the pot. The tea smelled like a garden, soil and all. She stirred everything
while timing it by counting out loud, since they had no clocks. Twenty minutes is a long time to count, so Blue took over
at five minutes so Jane could put on dry clothes.
Unlike Blue’s ceremony, this one took place in the living room, which had been prepared for the experience.
The lights were off. There was a fire going, and candles had been lit around the room.
All their pillows and blankets had been spread out in a semicircle, and the air was thick with snaking tendrils of nag champa smoke.
While Blue’s experience had been wide and open, this felt intimate, even claustrophobic with the rain’s penetrating beat over them.
Dean sat in the center of the pile of pillows and blankets, and everyone else spread around. Star was instructed to take the
place of honor on a cushion by the fire. Dean passed over the earthenware mug with a bowed head.
“Drink up,” he said. “It’s all for you.”
“Are we tripping?” she asked with a smile.
“We’re going somewhere special,” Dean said, and everyone laughed, even Blue. While Star drank, they lit up two joints and
passed them around, waiting for the moment to arise and everyone to be in the right frame of mind.
“Put something on,” Dean said to Sally, who was nearest the record player. “You like Zeppelin, don’t you, Star? Put on ‘The
Rain Song.’ ”
Sally leaned over and reached for the album—the black disc looked like an ancient object in the low light, something that
contained old wisdom. There was a crackle and stops and starts as Sally tried to find the groove with the needle, and then
the song came gently into the room on the ends of the tendrils of incense. Star closed her eyes in a kind of ecstasy at the
sound.
“Star,” Dean began, “tell us something good about yourself.”
“Something good?” Star opened her eyes, considered for a moment, pulling at the hem of the green T-shirt she was wearing.
She had arrived with fewer things than Blue and had already gone to the communal clothes pile for her outfit today, including Blue’s Hermès scarf.
Its dark blue silk had never suited Blue, but looked wonderful in Star’s magnificent curly hair, which shot out from her head like one of those halos you’d see in portraits of saints.
“I have good hair,” Star said. “I like my hair.”
“She’s vain,” Denver said right away. “She thinks she’s prettier than everyone else.”
“No, I don’t,” Star said, wheeling around.
It was so strange being the observer this time. Blue was part of this group—she belonged—and now she was an elder, a judge.
“Okay,” Dean said. “Then who is the prettiest person in this group?”
“Everyone’s pretty.”
“Pick someone.”
Star shifted, moving slightly away from the heat of the fire. She looked around the group. Blue could tell from her expression
that the tea was just starting to kick in.
“Everyone is so beautiful,” she said. “I can’t.”
“Are you pretty?” he asked.
“Sure. I guess.”
“What’s the prettiest part about you? Aside from your hair.”
Now Star was deeply unsure of what was going on. They were playing with her like they played with marks in the park. Blue felt beads of sweat on the back of her neck and scooched back from the fire.
“My . . . arms?”
“What do we all think of Star’s arms?”
“They’re elegant,” Sally said. “Long and elegant.”
“Strong,” Sweet Jane said.
Lacey and Cat both thought her arms were strong too.
“So many freckles,” Denver added. “Like stars in the sky. Stars on a Star.”
Stars on a Star. Stars on a Star. Blue was saying it too.
“What about you, Blue?” Dean asked.
Blue searched her mind for something to say about Star’s arms, something different and interesting. Star was looking at them
in wonder.
“She can hold us with them,” Blue finally said. That one had popped up somewhere in her head, the place that used to have
to think of things to say in English papers and at student teas.
Everyone made noises of approval. That was the best answer. Blue felt a glow tickling its way over her skin, chilling the
parts that were damp with sweat.
“Do you have hang-ups, Star?”
“No,” Star said.
“Then get undressed. Is that okay?”
“Sure,” she said after a second’s hesitation.
She pulled off her T-shirt and pulled down her shorts.
Dean made sure she removed everything except the bangle, which didn’t seem to come off.
Blue’s nakedness had been mostly hidden in the darkness; Star’s was not.
The glow of the fire illuminated her—her spindly legs, the freckles that covered her entire body.
Bit by bit, Star’s body was discussed and found to be very beautiful indeed.
There were no negative comments. Star began to relax and even posed a bit.
“So you see,” Dean said. “Maybe you are the prettiest.”
“Maybe,” Star said. “If you say so.”
“Who do you like the most here, Star?”
Star shuffled from foot to foot, a look of uncertainty on her face. She scanned all their faces cautiously.
“Blue,” she said.
This caught Blue by surprise.
“Okay, Blue. Go to Star.”
Blue felt herself rising from the floor and moving toward Star.
“Now, correct her for her vanity.”
Even though she knew what had happened to her, she still heard herself ask, “How?” Because maybe there was a different way.
“The way you were,” Dean said.
Star was quivering a little, looking at Blue’s face expectantly. Trustingly.
Blue hauled off and smacked her—hard, but not hard enough to hurt. Still, it knocked Star over and she began to wail.
“Why are you crying, Star?”
“Because she hit me?”
“Blue, how do you feel about Star?”
Ambivalent at best. Right now, mostly pity. Maybe even a little disgust, if she was being totally honest, which she was supposed to be.
“I love her,” she lied.
“Then why did you hit me?” Star spat.
“She did it to wake you up,” Dean said. “To the fact that you’re perfect. She doesn’t want you to forget how beautiful you
are. Now you’ll always remember it.”
Then it was all love again. Star was at the center of the pile of bodies on the living room floor, the inescapable embrace,
the warmth that stirred in all the little cold places inside. Sally lit another joint and when it reached Blue, she dragged
on it hard, listening to the little sizzle of the rolling paper, letting the acrid cloud inside of her body. She pulled on
it until all the edges of the world began to blur. When Dean took Star’s hand and led her toward the ladder to his loft, everyone
cheered and laughed and wished them well.