“For some of you, it was a disappointing marriage bed,” she continued in her booming voice, oblivious to the grins and interested looks she was gathering from outside their circle. “For others, it was simply a desire for more desire, or to get to know and befriend your bodies better. And some of us—let’s face it, we just needed a place to shoot the shit with other women.” She jiggled her arms, sending a wave of friendly energy through the group’s linked hands. “Zozobra’s your chance to literally watch all those hang-ups go up in flames, and to chart a new course for your future. Now, I want you each in turn to get in the middle of our circle and share one thing that’s been blocking you from being the ultimate, bad-ass woman you’ve always dreamed of being, and then tell us what you’re going to do to change it. We’ll hold space around you to honor what you share and help you focus your affirmation for change. Who’d like to be first?”
Syna let go of Sera’s hand with alacrity, hustling her booty into the center of the ring. The other women closed ranks around her, with Sera now holding River Wind’s callused hand. (River, she’d learned, was a local sculptress, and the one responsible for the earth mother fountain in Placita de Suerte y Sueños’s courtyard.)
“My biggest problem is my exercise equipment,” Syna announced. “I spend hours every day wallowing in guilt over not using my stupid elliptical machine. I’m tired of hating myself because I don’t want to get motion sickness wobbling away on that darn torture device for forty-five minutes a day, all so my buns will sit a quarter-inch higher in my ever-so-fashionable mom-jeans. So here’s my Zozobra-resolution: that glorified clothes hanger is getting kicked to the curb! My butt is just fine, and anyone who says otherwise—including my husband—can just suck it!” She waggled her fist in the air, cheeks flushed.
The BRBs let out a lusty cheer. “No, elliptical!” they shouted, in unison except for Sera, who only caught on belatedly. Aruni leaned over to Sera and murmured, “Funniest part is, her husband loves her curves. She just refuses to believe him when he tells her so. He’s absolutely crazy about her.”
Sera smiled, touched. What would it be like to have a relationship like that? She had no real frame of reference. Her brief flings in college and culinary school had been… unsuccessful… to put it kindly, and her relationship with Blake… Forget burned; she’d been incinerated.
Syna stepped back into the circle, which opened to welcome her. Immediately, another woman stepped forward. Not a bit shy, are they? Sera thought, admiring the BRBs even as she began to dread her own turn in the ring. Maybe I can arrange a fainting spell, or fake a nice seizure?
“Harvey won’t go down on me,” Bobbie blurted as soon as she got to the middle of the group, startling Sera straight out of her reverie. The perfectly put-together woman smoothed her cardigan twin set and checked that her pearls were sitting straight. “I told him it’s really not a cardinal sin to perform cunnilingus, despite what his ex-wife told him. I even begged him to ask his priest if he needed confirmation, but he keeps refusing. Well, if he doesn’t at least give it a whirl once, I’m going to find someone who will!”
“Yes, cunnilingus!”
“Harvey’s her new boyfriend,” Aruni whispered in Sera’s ear, after the giggles died down and Bobbie rejoined the others.
“I gathered.”
“Wish me luck, girl!” Aruni dropped Sera’s hand, squeezing her shoulder in passing as she strode gracefully into the ring. She plunked her hands on her lithe little hips. “I won’t bore you guys carping about my dummkopf ex-boyfriend. We all know he’s a sucking pit of negative energy.” She tossed her curls. “Well, my Z-resolution is to wash that schmoe right outta my hair, as the song says.” (Sera pictured a Yiddish grandma belting out Doris Day’s tune, and choked on a laugh.) “He did what he did, but it’s my choice to hold on to that bullshit or let it go. Tonight, I let it go. You’ll never hear another word about that yutz from me again.” Aruni pressed her palms together in prayer position, then opened up into a quick sun salutation. Unable to resist, she finished by flinging her arms wide like a child and letting out a whoop.
“No, yutz!”
One by one, the BRBs stepped forward and shared their secrets, their revelations sometimes touching, sometimes funny, and once, in the case of a woman who’d been molested in her youth, truly heartbreaking. All the while, the crowd’s chant grew in volume, the gloomies bowed and swayed at the feet of Zozobra, the fire dancer twirled and taunted. The ground began to vibrate with the energy of the restless, eager throng.
At last, only Pauline, Hortencia, and Sera were left, and Sera certainly wasn’t going to volunteer, despite the pointed looks and unsubtle head jerks her aunt was giving her.
“It’s not gonna work, Aunt Paulie. I’m not putting my secrets on display until you two have laid all your cards on the table.”
Pauline harrumphed, trying to cross her arms but being checked when she dragged Hortencia’s along with hers.
“Oh, grow up, Pauline!” Hortencia snorted. “Let’s get this over with. We swim together, or drown alone.” She hauled Pauline with her into the ring, and the encircling women gave a ragged cheer. The chants of ‘Burn him! Burn him!’ from the packed-in masses were growing louder by the moment. The BRBs looked from Pauline to Hortencia, wondering which woman would go first.
Pauline could have modeled for a new perfume called Eau de Chagrin. Under her jaunty sombrero and loud costume, she seemed smaller, more fragile than Sera could ever remember. Still, she wasn’t licked yet. Squaring her shoulders with a determined shimmy, she took a deep breath. When she spoke, she addressed not just Hortencia, but all of the Back Room Babes.
“There’s something I haven’t told you, and I guess tonight’s as good a night as any. It’s been hanging over my head long enough, for fuck’s sake, so maybe it’s time to let Zozobra carry the burden from now on. Anyway, I’ll get to the point.” She cleared her throat. “Remember how I always tell you women to get to know your bodies, make friends with them, even cop a feel of your favorite bits whenever you won’t get arrested for it? Well, one day I was saying hello to LuLu here”—she hefted her left breast demonstratively, setting coins clashing on her costume—“and I found something. A lump.”
As if on cue, the mob’s chanting paused, as on the stage, the Queen of Gloom stepped forward, making some proclamation that was inaudible from this deep in the crowd. In the relative quiet, the Back Room Babes’ gasps were amplified theatrically. Sera felt a thrill of alarm, but Pauline was quick to soothe it. “It turned out to be benign. But it shook the shit out of my confidence, and it got me thinking about what’s important to me.”
“Pauline Wilde, how dare you not tell me about this right away!” Hortencia looked shocked.
“Let me get this out, Horsey. I need to explain why I’ve been such a pain in the ass.”
Hortencia clamped her mouth shut, though she looked like it cost her.