Page 98 of The Last Session

She looked up in surprise, then chuckled. “Well, a lot of them are from LA.”

“Yeah. So, wait—how did you meet everyone again?” I now remembered Grace telling me on the drive here she was from Santa Fe and had come for a retreat.

“Well, I am from Santa Fe originally.” She tossed the last cushion down, straightened. “But I met Moon in LA.” She smiled, rueful. “I’d just dropped out of college.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.” She brushed back a neon strand. “I was trying to pay for it myself with all these shitty jobs, and I just couldn’t do it. Not even after…” She smiled, looking embarrassed. I waited and she finally continued. “I went on this app for sugar babies. My friend told me about it; she was seeing this guy who paid her rent. She was happy, and it seemed like this great opportunity. But when I did it, it didn’t feel like that. It felt…” She exhaled. “Maybe it was the guys I met. But it wasn’t a good experience. And I didn’t make that much.”

It was hard to imagine fresh-faced Grace as a sugar baby.

“How did you meet Moon?” I asked.

“She lived in my building. It was perfect timing. I was pretty depressed.” Grace shrugged. “She got me to see that if you’re hopeless, you let the evil win. If you join with others, you can be a force for good. She gave me something to live for.”

So Moon had been preying on people looking for answers. That was the very definition of a cult.

“Grace, do you think Catherine…” I considered how to phrase it. “She doesn’t seem quite right to me. I know Moon said she was tired. But… what do you think?”

Grace’s smile disappeared. She looked suddenly fearful, the same exact expression I’d seen on Catherine’s face the night before. “What do you mean?”

“Well, how long has she been living here? Has she been like this the whole time?”

“Like what?” Now Grace’s mouth turned downwards.

“Um…”Out of it? Sad and scared? Clearly not well?

“Catherine’s fine, Thea. Trust me. She’s more than fine.” Grace’s words were sharp, and she abruptly took off, disappearing through the canvas doorway.

“Okay, then,” I said in the resulting quiet.

I took the opportunity to look for Catherine’s room, but when I finally found it, after many wrong turns and dead ends, no one answered my knock. I called to her softly and tried the knob, but it was locked. Finally, I left.

I had to talk to Catherine one-on-one. Maybe everyone else here was brainwashed, but I felt sure I could talk some sense into her. Ihadto.

I decided to take a quick shower, defiantly using the curtain-protected stall. The hot, steaming water cleared my head. So Moon et al. were obsessed with past lives. That wasn’t necessarily shocking—again, a lot of the spiritual set was into that. At one point, I’d even dabbled in the esoteric arts. After Ryan’s ghosting, I’d contacted a tarot reader Dom loved. And the session had seemed to be weirdly accurate, though it was very possible my brain was just using the symbols to create meaning. It mattered less to me if it was “real” and more that it was helpful.

I had to admit that people could find real refuge in spirituality—and religion. The problem arose when people used their beliefs to harm. Think of the Crusades. Think of the Inquisition. Think of certain religious communities rightnowdenouncing queer and trans people.Then the beliefs became more about control and oppression than anything else.

Grace shutting down at my questions, CatherineandKaren looking to Moon for permission to speak… all of it gave me a bad feeling. This wasn’t just a group of hippies and hipsters having fun in the desert. Moon and Sol held power here. I knew from various cult documentaries that leaders often stopped their members from getting help, whether that meant seeing a therapist or going to a hospital for medical treatment. I wasn’t going to allow them to let Catherine decompensate, to deteriorate. Not if I had the chance to stop it.

When I came out of the showers, Jonah was brushing his teeth at the row of sinks. He was in sweatpants, shirtless, his curls mussed.

We locked eyes in the fog-ringed mirror. He leaned forward and spit.

“Good morning.” He said it so neutrally that we both laughed.

I tightened my towel, aware of our near-nakedness. His sweatpants were low, revealing his lower abs and V lines.

“So.” He rapped his toothbrush on the sink. “What have you been up to?”

“Oh, not much. Just learning about how you and I are part of a past life cohort based on the movieStargirl.”

“What?”

I explained everything I’d learned from Catherine and from the group. When I finished, he burst into laughter.

“What?” I asked, as he caught his breath.