The Clever Fox: Part Three (The Pleasure Hound Series) by Ines Johnson Read Free Book Online Page B

left, into the person sitting beside her.
    It was Bow. Bow dropped her fake zen and threw death stars at Shanti. Turning, Bow looked up at Wiz. Her brows rose, her eyes rolled, and her shoulders shrugged as though to say that Shanti was out of their league.
    Bow scooted up in front of Shanti, directly in front of Wiz’s eye line. She refolded herself into a lotus -without the assistance of her hands- closed her eyes, and easily slipped back into the meditation. It appeared that everyone had strategically scooted away from Shanti. She sat in a wide circle of nothing. No one near her. No one touching her.
    “Omm.”
    Everyone’s eyes were closed, mouths trembling out the tones, hands laid open to receive the bountiful energy from the universe. Shanti’s eyes were open, her teeth chewed her inner lip, her hands clenched into fists. She looked over her shoulder at the door.
    What the hell had she been thinking coming here? She’d stayed away from these places for the last ten years of her life for a reason. This reason. She didn’t fit in. She didn’t have the attention span to sit still for meditation. She lacked the flexibility for the intricate yoga poses. Why hadn’t she gone on a single’s cruise instead? She didn’t need to get in touch with her inner self. She needed someone to touch her inner self. That’s what would solve her problems.
    She gave Wiz a fleeting look before rising. His eyes were closed as he continued to lead the chant. Shanti rose as quietly as possible and exited the room.
    Walking into the hall, the explosion of colors and statues brought her back to her childhood. Her father had been a part of the Black Panthers Party’s breakfast program before he began following an Indian Mystic. Her mother was one of the mystic’s many children. Shanti had grown up with a sense of righteous indignation and tolerant compassion. Her parents were hippies, the kind that pillow surfed from ashram to ashram; mat-surfed to yogavilles; and couch-surfed into the basements of the strangers who they’d met at the ashrams and yogavilles. The way she’d grown up didn’t make it easy to maintain longterm relationships with kids her own age.
    Her parents had been content to shout, pray, and talk a problem to death. They’d host sit ins and bed ins, labor strikes (though neither worked a day in their lives) and hunger strikes.
    As much as Shanti hated moving around as a kid, she hated sitting still even more. She’d been introduced to too many gods to wait for answered prayers. Shanti was a doer. A mover. A shaker.
    She moved quickly to her room and shook the contents of her drawer into her suitcase. She’d thought that getting back to her roots would help her figure out what to do with her future now that her past was so screwed up. But that was a load of bull. Her early past had been an exercise is trying to be still and peaceful while waiting for the world to change. Her more recent past had been full of her doing, moving fast and shaking up the status quo. Only Shanti learned that those outside of the zen community also preferred to move at a slower pace and wait for the world to change.
    Shanti snapped her suitcase closed and made her way back down the hall. She’d planned to be at the ashram for thirty days. She’d wanted to cleanse her spirit, sweep out her soul to rediscover her authentic self. But what she found in a week was that she was who she’d always been.
    “You are running away?”
    Shanti stopped in her tracks. She turned back to face the little Indian woman. The woman’s face was round, her cheek bones high, her eyes overly large. Her gray hairs poked out of a scarf. She was bent over on her knees cleaning the floor. Shanti had seen the woman a few times during her stay.
    “Your feet move faster than your head. Slow down so that they can catch up. Then you will be where you’re supposed to be.”
    “I’m not supposed to be here,” Shanti said.
    “No,” the old lady smiled. “But