Heart/Breath - Darcy Vebber

Lisa put her hand to her throat. She imagined vines wrapped around her heart, twined in and out of the ribs pulling, then, up at the base of her throat, tight so it was not quite possible to breathe. Her first impulse, and who knows maybe the best impulse, was to walk away. Family, friends, all of it. Somewhere there was a life that was simpler and more true than this one. Better. She recalled a conversation she had with Sam about this very thing, about monasteries, retreats, desert hermits. She'd been reading about a woman in North Dakota who was attracted to the monastic life. He'd been curious. He'd said he didn't think people were meant to live in ones and twos. Hollywood was making him lonely. That was what Lisa thought at the time. He was just lonely, not on his way to conversion.

"Do you think it's serious?" she asked Kate now. No point in asking about the other, the nasty implication in Kate's familiarity with Sam. Alice would say, no point in giving her the satisfaction. "I mean, lots of people here go through a Jesus phase."

"Really?" Kate raised her eyebrows. "In 'this town', do you mean? Little people? Below the line? Or talent? Is this the kind of thing talent gets caught up in from time to time? Like the Tom Cruise scientology thing?"

"Well, yes. Exactly. Not that they're not serious but …" Lisa had forgotten how much Kate professed to hate Hollywood.

"He's serious, Lisa." In a moment, all the fight that had been animating Kate went out of her and she leaned forward, elbows on the table, forehead resting in her hands. Her hair was dirty, greasy at the scalp. "Crazy serious. Visions, sacrifice, purity, the whole thing." She looked up and caught her sister's eye. "But he was nice about it. Sweet. Like he is. Always wanting to share."

For a lovely fraction of a second, the two of them laughed together. Then it was gone and there was only cooling potato soup, waiting in the plain blue bowls.