seven and a half hours ago.
She nibbled at the candy, taking only a few shavings from the edge of
the piece. She let them melt slowly on her tongue.
She tried not to think. She tried to concentrate on just the mindless
pleasure of a good hot steep. Just drift.
Just be.
She leaned back in the tub, savoring the taste of chocolate, relishing
the scent of jasmine in the rising steam.
After a couple of minutes, she opened her eyes and poured a glass of
champagne from the ice-cold bottle.
The crisp taste was a perfect complement to the lingering trace of
chocolate and to the voice of Sinatra crooning the nostalgic and sweetly
melancholy lines of “It Was a Very Good Year.”
For Rachael, this relaxing ritual was an important part of the day,
perhaps the most important. Sometimes she nibbled at a small wedge of
sharp cheese instead of chocolate and sipped a single glass of
chardonnay instead of champagne. Sometimes it was an extremely cold
bottle of dark beer-Heineken or Beck’s-and a handful of the special
plump peanuts that were sold by an expensive nut shop in Costa Mesa.
Whatever her choice of the day, she consumed it with care and slow
delight, in tiny bites and small sips, relishing every nuance of taste
and scent and texture.
She was a “present-focused” person.
Benny Shadway, the man Eric had thought was Rachael’s lover, said there
were basically four types of people, past-, present-, future-, and
omni-focused.
Those focused primarily on the future had little interest in the past or
present. They were often worriers, peering toward tomorrow to see what
crisis or insoluble problem might be hurtling toward them-although some
were shiftless dreamers rather than worriers, always looking ahead
because they were unreasonably certain they were due for great good
fortune of one kind or another. Some were also workaholics, dedicated
achievers who believed that the future and opportunity were the same
thing.
Eric had been such a one, forever brooding about and eagerly
anticipating new challenges and conquests.
He had been utterly bored with’ the past and impatient with the snail’s
pace at which the present sometimes crept by.
A present-focused person, on the other hand, expended most of his energy
and interest in the joys and tribulations of the moment. Some
present-focused types were merely sluggards, too lazy to prepare for
tomorrow or even to contemplate it. Strokes of bad luck often caught
them unaware, for they had difficulty accepting the possibility that the
pleasantness of the moment might not go on forever. And when they found
themselves mired in misfortune, they usually fell into ruinous despair,
for they were incapable of embarking upon a course of action that would,
at some point in the future, free them from their troubles.
However, another type of present-focused person was the hard worker who
could involve himself in the task at hand with a single-mindedness that
made for splendid efficiency and craftsmanship. A first-rate
cabinetmaker, for example, had to be a present-focused person, one who
did not look forward impatiently to the final assembly and completion of
a piece of furniture but who directed his attention entirely and
lovingly to the meticulous shaping and finishing of each rung and arm of
a chair, to each drawer face and knob and doorframe of a china hutch,
taking his greatest satisfaction in the process of creation rather than
in the culmination of the process.
Present-focused people, according to Benny, are more likely to find
obvious solutions to problems than are other people, for they are not
preoccupied with either what was or what might come to pass but only
with what is. They are also the people most sensuously connected with
the physical realities of life-therefore the most perceptive in some
ways-and they most likely have more sheer pleasure and fun than any
dozen past- or future-oriented citizens.
“You’re the best kind of present-oriented woman, Benny had once told her
over a Chinese dinner at Peking Duck. “You prepare for the future but
never at the expense of losing touch with now. And you’re so admirably
able to put the past behind you.”
She had said, “Ah, shut up and eat your moo goo gai pan.”