Alone at 2230 in the Sofitel Minneapolis, I curled in around the radiant heat of my laptop and waited for the mushrooms to kick in. It wasn't the first time that evening I'd waited - 5g around 2100 gave way to impatience, but nothing else, and at 2200, my minder fed me 3-4g more, insisting in aggrieved tones that it worked - but now I was theoretically about to have my first hallucinogenic experience on my own. So I sat against the pillows and waited, staring fixedly at a black and white photograph of the Rum River.
Nothing. Nothing but the growing awareness of my hair against my neck, nothing but a growing stomachache. 2300 came. I glanced at the clock. At 2330, my minder was due back. I'd kicked her out of the room after she guzzled two thirds of a bottle of sherry. I didn't miss her: she'd been reading me sleep paralysis stories for the last half hour she'd been in the room.
The minion returned ten minutes after the most noticeable of the effects faded, and five minutes after the terrible stomach-roiling cramps set in. She was furious, and I couldn't argue.
The minder didn't return that night. When we called at 2330, she was fast asleep and annoyed to be woken.
* * *
Minneapolis is a garden city, and I was playing hooky with the minion, showing her as much of it as I could. The rose gardens are beautiful in early July: all the gardens are beautiful in early July. We took in the rock gardens, Lakewood Cemetery, the stretches of oak and ashes shading huge yards filled with gardens, the sculptures down in the shadow of the Cherry and Spoon, the modern art swings. It was 90F and humid, and the government had shut down.
It didn't seem to matter in the long afternoon, with the taste of homeroasted coffee available everywhere and the cool drag of the air conditioning in the rental car. Somewhere in Bloomington, science fiction fans were nattering away, and my badge was lost under the bed in the hotel room. Somewhere, my "friends" were talking behind my back.
* * *
I had an ex-fiance once. He was emotionally abusive and manipulative as fuck. He took thousands of dollars of my money, then moved on to another girl. He had children with her. Children, I'm told, that he slaps and otherwise hits. He's been unemployed save for odd jobs for three years now. She smokes dope at home, around the kids.
It's not my problem. He's not my problem anymore. I'm just passing through, but.
He's in AA again for the sixth time, my friends tell me. He's at the apologizing stages, and they tell me I should let him, for his sake. They pressure me (some subtly, some not), to amend things with him, to pick up where we broke off. They say he's really changed.
I don't want his apologies. I don't ever want to see him again. I walked away from Minnesota to walk away from being his doormat. One of us lost when he moved on, and it wasn't me.
He stops at con when he finds me, smiles a loving, sweet smile that might have worked on me five years ago. Waves.
"Keep moving," I say. When he looks confused, missing (or pretending to miss the point), I indicate a direction away from me. "That way."
* * *
"Fuck him, seriously. Fuck them for even suggesting it."
I turn to Paige. "Kelly told me that they knew he'd abused me, that they knew he was a dick to me, but that it didn't happen to them, so it doesn't matter."
I still don't know how to feel about it.
* * *
jess and her husband are calm, friendly, normal, and good conversation. The food is great, the night is beautiful, and it's an oasis in the middle of a strange, shifting weekend. It's over way too soon, maybe to be resumed in Indiana, or Illinois, or somewhere far from the Twin Cities.
It's late. I can't bring myself to go to the convention.
Maybe later.
* * *
"Goddamn, even the speed bumps are noncommittal in this town.."
It takes me a full minute once I've pulled over to stop laughing.
* * *
Downtown, Paige is gone, gone that morning on a plane. I'm sitting in a chair looking out over Sixth Street, several stories high. Later afternoon sun is filtering down between the buildings, down through the massive glass windows of the skyways and onto the asphalt-patched roadways. I feel numb, but at peace. I'm not home anymore, here in Minneapolis, and I'm another tourist, albeit one familiar with a place she used to live.
"It doesn't matter," I say to my reflection in the window. "It doesn't matter."
Doesn't it?