Erin Karbuczky

The Amazing Shauna Spiegelman

The hall was packed with people in metal folding chairs.

“You would think,” said Angelica, “that they would have sprung for a theater.”

I nodded. Plushy chairs would have been nice. “There,” I said. I’d spotted a set of chairs in the middle of the third row. A little closer than I’d have liked, but seats were seats. We raced over to the chairs, past a couple who was ambling toward them, and planted our asses firmly in place before shrugging off our coats and plopping our purses on the floor between our feet.

“You ever seen ‘er speak before?” said the man next to me. He wore a trucker hat and a tan Carhartt sweatshirt. He was old enough to be my father. But my father would have never come to an event like this.

“Transformational,” his wife said, and nodded.

“Maise and I just discovered her,” said Angelica. “I love her already.”

I wasn’t so sure.

“You watch my seat,” Angelica said to me. “I have to pee.”

“Go on,” said the wife. “I won’t let anyone take your seats.”

We both stood and I took my wallet in case we wanted to get a snack.

Angelica fanned herself. “Hot in here. I always forget it’s warmer inside, in a crowd, than it is outside. Even if it’s cold out.”

In the bathroom we exited our stalls and washed our hands and speculated what we’d see tonight at Shauna Spiegelman’s talk. I didn’t know what to expect. I was still kind of skeptical about what she had to offer that yoga and prayer and my journal couldn’t. I didn’t think I needed anyone to tell me how to live my life. But Angelica had dragged me here. She’d spent the past few months telling me how Shauna – she referred to her on a first name basis – had changed her life. Maybe I’d noticed a small enough change to want to see what the fuss was about. I started to say as much when Shauna Spiegelman herself walked into the restroom. She had her fingers clutched around the charm on her necklace and was running it along the chain, back and forth in a rhythmic motion.

“Peace,” she said when she noticed us.

I dried my hands.

“Peace,” Angelica whispered.

Shauna wore a dress that was fitted to her body like spandex and was patterned to look like the night sky. On her head she wore a crown of stars in her highlighted hair like Hedy Lamarr in Ziegfeld Girl. She walked – no, floated – into a stall and I heard the lock click.

Angelica formed her mouth into a little “o” shape. I smiled and nodded toward the door.

“Ohmigod, Maisy,” she said when we were in the hall making our way back to the auditorium. “Shauna Spiegelman knows who I am now.”

I turned and looked at her. She glowed.

I remained unchanged from the encounter.

As we reentered the auditorium, our seat neighbor flitted past us. “Your stuff is with Bob.” She winked, her white hair tinged yellow in the fluorescent light.

“Got your purses,” grinned Bob when we sat back down. “Had to convince Nance I could handle it if she left, too. You ladies and your bladders.” He’d taken off the hat and his grey hair was a sweaty mess plastered to his forehead.

I leaned down to put my wallet back in my bag.

Nance was already speed-walking back down the aisle toward us. I couldn’t believe someone her age could go so fast.

“I saw her in the bathroom,” she panted as she sat down. “Shauna Spiegelman. She told me she liked my shirt.”

I looked at her. She was wearing a pink t-shirt screen printed with two white kittens in a basket.

“It’s nice,” I said. “Angelica has shirts like that in her closet.”

“I do not,” Angelica said, low so Nance wouldn’t hear. The crowd was fidgeting now, and you could hear snips of everyone’s conversations at once. Their words melded together and separated like waves. Once in a while, you’d hear a cough or a laugh.

After another minute or so the music cued on. Singing bowls and a steady, thrumming Om.

Swirls of sound-scapes layered on top made me feel like I was floating in outer space. The lights grew dimmer and dimmer until all that was left were pinpricks of light like floating candles. The projection screen, previously white and dull, lit up now with a mandala pattern in blue and gold.

The audience began to clap and to lower their chatter.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” said a disembodied voice. “Our guest tonight has written seven books on subjects ranging from spiritual consciousness to sacred geometry. Her latest book, Miracles Every Monday: How Moon Magic and the Art of Prayer Can Manifest Your Dreams to Reality, is an instant LA Times Best Seller, and it is not even released until midnight tonight. Please welcome to the stage, the amazing Shauna Spiegelman.”

Shauna Spiegelman walked up the small staircase on the side of the stage and walked over to the podium. She set her notes down and adjusted the microphone on her headset, which she somehow managed to wear while keeping the crown of stars on, too.

Next to me, Angelica squealed under her breath. I reached my hand over toward her and she squeezed it. I let my hand linger in her on her knee a moment and took my phone out of my pocket with my other hand. I opened a new tab on Chrome and typed in what I could remember from the mouthful of a title. I clicked on the LA Review of Books review.

“Pay attention,” Angelica whispered.

I put the phone facedown on my lap and took my hand back, patting her arm before resting mine on the armrest between us.

The crowd had continued to clap, and Shauna hadn’t said anything yet. Just feigned awe at the audience. Like she hadn’t seen such a big crowd before.

“Wow,” she said. She was grinning and her mouth took up the entire bottom of her face. But it was endearing, actually. She had on a pink metallic lipstick that I coveted, and her teeth were white and straight. Her voice was raspy and sincere.

“Wow,” she said again, and she put her hands in prayer position over her mouth, bowing slightly before placing them down on her thighs. “What a crowd. What a group. How lucky am I to be standing here with you tonight. What a dream. I want to show you something before we get started.”

She produced a small clicker from the podium and the background of the projector morphed into an image of a collage. There were pictures of exotic locations, words and affirmations like “peace” and “forgiveness” and “find joy in others.” Pictures of best seller lists. Pictures of figures in various yogic poses. And in the corner, a picture of a crowd in an auditorium.

“I manifested you,” said Shauna. “I envisioned you, and here you are. Thank you for coming to my talk.” She bowed. “I want to talk about my book Miracles Every Monday, and I thought that it’s so fabulous that today is Monday and that we might make a miracle together. How does that sound?”

The crowd whooped. A man screamed YEAH from the back of the auditorium.

Bob and Nance were standing up, clapping and smiling with open mouths. Angelica tugged on my hand. I stood up with her and clapped, tentative.

“Awesome,” said Shauna. “Here’s what we’re going to do: whenever I say the word ‘miracle,’ I want you to think about rain. By the end of our time together, I want you to believe that it is raining already. And when we leave, don’t be surprised if you feel a little drizzle coming down.”

I snorted and Angelica elbowed me in the rib. What, we were weather gods now? It was nice to believe in things like magic and manifestation, and prayer, and affirmations, but it wasn’t real. No amount of wishing was going to put ten million dollars in your bank account, or cure someone’s cancer. If it did, we’d all be healthy and rich. If it did, Angelica would be my girlfriend and not just a friend, because if wishing worked, she would love me back.

In the dark room with all the flickering lights, Angelica’s profile looked like that of a Grecian goddess. Her tight dark curls were wrapped in a bun with a few tendrils framing her face.

I stopped listening with effort, and let Shauna’s lights and words wash over me, while I contemplated my life and all the ways it wasn’t working. It wasn’t just Angelica, it was everything. I didn’t have the job I wanted. I didn’t have my own place like I wanted. I saw the destination I desired but couldn’t see the path that would take me there. I worried that I was a loser. That I would never find my way and my parents would be eternally disappointed.

Music poured through the speakers again and everyone around me started chanting. I had spaced out, lost my place.

“Om Shanti Om,” they repeated. I thought I’d caught up with them, but then I was past them, the only one chanting in the room.

Shauna Spiegelman took it in stride. “My friend from the bathroom,” she said. “Fourth time’s a charm. This is the type of energy we need. Raining down on us.” She smiled at me. I pulled my flannel tight and felt my ears go red.

I turned to Angelica and she squeezed her shoulders to her ears in a shrug, smiling all the while. “It’s okay,” she mouthed.

Next to me Bob had popped a piece of mint bubblegum into his mouth and was snapping and popping the gum. “Just quit smoking,” he whispered to me. “You smoke?”

“Smoke what?” I said. There was a fresh joint in my bag waiting to be smoked on the way home.

At the end of the talk, Shauna told us all to look under our seats for a surprise.

It was the book that came with our tickets, but she’d signed them all in metallic pink gel pen. That was the surprise. It reminded me I wanted to know where her lipstick was from, but I would have to ask on Instagram and hope she’d respond.

“I hope you all have a miraculous evening,” said Shauna from the podium. The lights had come back on and the magic had whooshed out from the room.

People shuffled out in droves and Angelica and I waited with Bob and Nance, taking our time putting on our coats and making sure we had everything we came in with.

“What did you think?” said Nance. She wiggled her eyebrows at us like we were co-conspirators.

“I loved it,” said Angelica. “Do you think it’s raining?”

“Oh, for sure,” said Bob.

Nance agreed.

The room was mostly empty now, save for us and a few other stragglers who likely hoped they’d get to speak to Shauna before she went back to her hotel for the evening. Shauna looked small now.

She did in the bathroom, too, but this was different. The stage had blown her out of proportion, made her look like a giant sunflower. Now she wilted a bit. Must take a lot of energy to get up on stage and smile forever and pretend you love everybody in the room.

I don’t know if I could do that.

“You girls have a way home?” asked Nance.

I was twenty-five but people always mistook me for younger. More like eighteen.

I held up my car keys.

We walked out with Bob and Nance, Shauna and her hopeful posse a few yards behind us. I heard a man go on and on about his visions of Jesus and a woman yammer about her own vision board.

I looked back. Shauna looked over it. Like she had places to be.

In the parking lot we split off from Bob and Nance and got into my car. It wasn’t raining at all.

“I loved that,” said Angelica as she put her seatbelt on. “So much!”

“I’m happy you liked it,” I said. I saw her catch a look at me while I fiddled with the radio. I thought my curtain of hair could hide my expression.

“You didn’t like it,” she said.

I only said, “It isn’t raining.”

“That’s your takeaway?” She took her curls out of her bun and redid it, combing her nails through her hair. “Put on Tegan and Sara.”

I reached past her into the glove and grabbed the cd I’d kept long after iPods and iPhones and Spotify took over the music game.

“I thought you didn’t like them,” I said.

“They’re growing on me.”

I turned to look at her. She was preoccupied by something, I could tell.

I was about to pull out of my spot now that so much of the lot had cleared. But out of the corner of my eye I watched Shauna Spiegelman lighting up a cigarette outside the venue doors.

“Hold on,” I said to Angelica. “I think I forgot something.”

“You want me to come with you?”

“No, just wait here.”

I got out of the car, not knowing what I was about to do, only that I was walking toward Shauna.

“Hi,” she said as I approached her.

“Hi.” I put my hands in my pockets. “It isn’t raining,” I said.

She chuckled. “It still might.”

“You promised rain as we walked out.”

She put her hand on my upper arm. “Sweetie,” she said. “Miracles don’t happen on command. They happen when they’re good and ready. Like a flower waiting to bloom. Just because it hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean it won’t.”

“I like your lipstick,” I said. “What’s the color?”

“Here,” she said. She reached into her purse and pulled out a sealed lipstick tube. “I bought a new one today. You can have it. I’ll buy another.” She took a drag and I tried to find meaning in her words.

She pressed it into my palm and took another drag from her cigarette. She blew the smoke away from my face. Courteous.

“Let me pay you for it,” I said, and remembered my purse was in the car with Angelica.

“Pay it forward instead,” she said. Then she dropped the cigarette to the ground and snubbed it out with the toe of her silver boot.

“I really liked your talk tonight,” I said.

“Oh yeah?” she eyed me, like she knew I wasn’t really there the whole time.

“I did. My friend loves you.”

“Tell your friend I love her, too. Get home safe.” She left me standing by the building and walked toward a silvery jeep. It looked new, or at least freshly washed. I walked back over to my own car, a Toyota that belonged to my older brother when he still lived at home.

When I got back in, Angelica asked me why I didn’t take her with me. She said she was afraid to leave the car because she didn’t know where the keys were. It was a push to start.

“I would have liked to meet her,” she said. She looked down.

I took the lipstick out of my pocket and used my nail to take the plastic off the tube. I took out the wand and dabbed the extra on the rim. Then I looked in the rearview mirror and applied it to my lips. “What do you think?”

“Do mine,” she said, and she leaned in toward me. I painted her lips with Shauna Spiegelman’s lipstick and dabbed at them with a tissue from a mini box I kept in the cupholder.

When I looked back at the windshield, I could tell it had started to rain. Little blurry dots of drizzle and the two of us fogging up the car with our breath.