Introduction

Kimmi Auerbach tried everything in her search for enlightenment: therapy, a Reiki Master, even hypnosis. Finally she made an appointment with a tarot card reader. Instead of predicting the future, each card sparked a memory. In a Wizard of Oz-like twist of fate, Kimberlee realized she had the answers all along…and that it's not about looking into the future, but about trusting yourself along the way.

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Excerpt

My mother was different after the divorce.

She had lost a lot of weight and was finally feeling good about herself. She wasn't skinny, but she could get into size 12 jeans and her butt looked cute. With her blond hair, baby-doll face, breathy voice and new svelte body, she looked a bit like Marilyn Monroe, and attracted the attention of men everywhere: doormen, handymen, businessmen, men in Fairway, men in Starbucks, old men, middle-aged men, even men my age. She sauntered and smiled and batted her eyelashes like a sex kitten. She was fifty going on twenty. I was twenty-four going on twenty-five, not used to my new sexy mother. I wanted my old mom back, my big, cuddly, muumuu-wearing Mom.

It would have been one thing if she had stayed in Westchester or moved to California where she could have strutted her stuff out of my sight. But she moved into my building on the Upper West Side. There was no escaping her.

“Kimmi, I was in the corner deli yesterday, and a gorgeous man, and I mean gorgeous, about thirty-five, maybe thirty, came over to me and said, 'You are the woman of my dreams.' Then he started to serenade me in front of the pineapples.”

“Mom, you can't smile at everyone you see. You have to be careful.”

“Kimmi. I'm having fun. I'm a grown-up. I know how to take care of myself.”

I didn't believe her. She had let my father bully her all through their marriage. And she never, not once, put up a fight or told him to fuck off. When he called her a “stupid bitch” after finding out she had lied to him about taking his shirts to the dry cleaners, she cowered in the corner and simply said, “I'm sorry, Mark. I'm sorry.” When he rated her apple pie in front of guests, giving her a six out of ten, after she had spent all afternoon peeling and soaking apples, she just smiled. I was the one who stood up to him. I was the one who jumped on his back when he lunged at her for accidentally breaking the answering machine.

Bullshit, she could take of care herself.

Now that she was finally free of my father, I worried there would be someone else like him, someone else who would hurt or mistreat her. What was I supposed to do though? Stand outside her door with a baseball bat and screen the men who came to visit? I didn't have the time, and frankly, I didn't want to be reminded that my mother, twice my age, was getting more play than me.

“How is it having your mom in the same building?” my friends would ask. “Aren't you scared she's going to stop by unannounced when you have someone over?” Wink. Wink.

The truth was, I hadn't had a boyfriend since Zach and I hadn't had a date in over six months. While my mother was flitting and flirting all over New York City, and my father was living in Philly with his new wife, and my brother was studying Spanish in Costa Rica for college credit, I was living in a studio apartment six floors below my mother, working as a temp at Worldwide Television News, eating boxes of Entenmanns's cookies and masturbating for entertainment.

It was no life.

“Let's visit Mikey,” my mother said as we sat on her couch in her living room, waiting for our chicken in lemon sauce from Miss Elle's to be delivered. That was another thing about my mother: After the divorce, she stopped cooking.

“In Costa Rica?” I asked. “Isn't that expensive?”

“I have money,” she said.

She was getting alimony from my father, but not enough to be extravagant.

“Mikey can get us a discount on a room at the place he's staying,” she added.

Why not? What did I have going on that was so special that I couldn't visit my brother in Costa Rica for his birthday and Thanksgiving, which fell within a couple of days of each other, along with Maggie's birthday, which I tried not to think about.

I asked my boss for a week off, and before I knew it, I was sitting next to my mother on a plane to San Jose. I looked down at her Lee Press On Nails. This was either going to be fun or a total nightmare.

Mikey was waiting for us at the airport. I hadn't seen him in a while. Six months, maybe. The last time I saw him was when we were helping my mother pack up the house and move to the city.

I reached up to hug him. He was tall and strong and tan, but when I looked at him, I still saw the cute, button-nosed boy I never appreciated as a kid. He grabbed our bags and helped us into the minivan.

It took us a little over an hour to get to Costa Verde, the small hotel where we would be staying in Quepos, overlooking Manuel Antonio National Park. Everything about this country-the lush greenery, the iguanas, the monkeys-felt wild, untamed, like our mother in her big straw hat.

I smiled at my brother, who looked at my mother and asked, “Are you going wear that hat every day?”

“Give me a break,” she whined.

The room my mother and I were sharing was bigger than both our New York City apartments combined. It had a kitchen with a floating island. There was a hammock in the room and floor to ceiling glass-less screen windows. It was like being in a treetop screened-in porch overlooking the ocean. I was in heaven and, for a second, forgot about my mother's men, my lack of men and my $10/ hour job.

In the morning, we ate scrambled eggs with pico de gallo at the hotel restaurant while we watched monkeys swing from branch to branch. In the afternoon, we went to Café Milagro, where we played chess, drank coffee and listened to salsa music.

This was living.

For the first few days, the three of us got along well.

On the fourth night, a bunch of Michael's friends invited us to a popular outdoor nightclub right on the water. The moon was high in the sky, and I was wearing a red floral, sleeveless dress, cut on the bias, that hugged my body in all the right places. My mother was wearing a plain black dress fit more for a Westchester cocktail party than a night out in the jungle. I felt like shaking my tits in her face and saying, “Take that.”

We sat down at a wooden table facing the dance floor, and the waiter came over and poured us shots of chilled red wine. I thought red wine had to be room temperature to be good, but this was delicious and refreshing, so we asked for more.

I didn't like to drink with my mother. She wasn't an alcoholic, but when she drank, she drank too much. When we were kids, she used to drink white wine at night and dance around to Sister Sledge. As we got older, though, as she got older, especially leading up to the divorce, wine had the opposite effect on her. It made her nasty and catty, and sometimes unrecognizable.

Michael was oblivious to our mother's alcohol intake as he flailed around wildly on the dance floor with his friends. I decided not to worry about it either. Fuck it, we were on vacation. I wanted to dance too.

As I made my way through the crowd to the dance floor, a stranger grabbed my arm and handed me a sequined party mask. I put it on and started to dance, my hips swinging back and forth, my arms rolling up over my head and down again. I liked how my body moved. I liked the shapes it made and how my back arched when I flipped my head around. My mother shimmied up beside me, thrusting her hips into mine, trying to bump and grind with me. I wanted her off of me, away from me, so I spun around and danced to the outer edges of the dance floor. Dancing alone was better than dancing with her. I closed my eyes to get my rhythm back. When I opened them again, my mother was salsa dancing with a twenty-one-year old local boy named Juan P.-“P” so they wouldn't confuse him with the other Juan.

I danced over to my brother, who was bobbing up and down to the beat, head down, shoulders slumped. I lifted his chin with my finger so he could see our mother rubbed up against his friend.

“Mom's drunk,” I said.

The look in his eyes was almost cartoonish. I thought I saw smoke coming out of his ears. He shoved past the dancers who were bumping and grinding with abandon. The stranger who had handed me the mask tried to engage him in a crazy hand dance. My brother skillfully ducked down and around him. I trailed behind.

When we finally reached her, Michael grabbed my mother's arm hard, the way my father used to, and shouted in her ear, “Party's over. Time to go home.”

On the cab ride back to the hotel, my brother kept asking, “How much wine did you have? I'm asking you a question. How much wine did you drink?”

She refused to answer him and stared out the window like a bratty teenager.

“She's all yours,” my brother said, dropping us off at our room.

“She's been all mine for the last few months. You take her,” I said.

“Fat chance,” he said and walked away.

“Mom, you wanna take a shower first?” I asked, kicking off my flip-flops, watching her try to find her balance. “Mom, I'm talking to you. Do you want to take a shower?” I asked again, stepping in front of her to make eye contact.

She said nothing.

“Fine then. I'm getting in.”

“Fine then,” she said, mocking my voice.

I took off my dress and underwear and placed them on top of the toilet seat, trying to forget about my drunken mother in the other room. I stepped in and stood still on the soft, smooth tiles, letting the cool water soothe me. I got out and wrapped myself in a towel. I was calmer, cleaner. I turned around to pick up my clothes and saw something moving. I bent down to look. Tiny ants were crawling all over the crotch of my underwear.

“EEEEWWWWW,” I screamed.

My skin got all creepy-crawly. I swatted at the back of my neck only to find a lock of hair. Then something struck me. Silence. Why wasn't my mother coming in to see if I was okay?

Still dripping with water, I peeked my head out into the room and saw my mother's clothes lying in a pile on the floor.

Sweet Jesus.

I dropped my towel on the ground, threw on my nightgown and went to the porch to see if she was there. She wasn't. I looked down and saw her splashing around loudly in the pool. Yikes! I raced out of our room and knocked on my brother's door, across the hall. “Quick, Mom is swimming in the pool. I think she's naked.”

“Are you kidding me?” he said, grabbing a shirt from the floor and putting it on.

I ran back into my room and watched from the balcony.

Splash. Splash. My mother was oblivious.

Michael opened the gate to the pool and covered his eyes. In a firm, parental voice, he said, “Mom, get out of the pool RIGHT NOW. It's 2 A.M. You're going to wake up the other guests.”

“No,” she said, and swam to the other side.

“I said, NOW!” he screamed.

“FINE,” she screamed, and headed toward the ladder.

I went back inside and sat on the corner of my bed like a nervous mother awaiting the late arrival of her teenage daughter.

The door swung open.

She looked like a soaked puppy, thick, wet strands of hair covering her face. At least she was wearing a bathing suit.

“Are you okay?” I asked, reaching for her arm.

She was mumbling to herself.

“What? What are you saying?” I asked.

“Thanks a lot for siccing the gestapo on me,” she said under her breath, grabbing the towel off her dresser, shoulders hunched, head down, on her way to the bathroom.

The next morning, she got up before I did and went to breakfast without me. When I got to the restaurant, I saw her sitting across from my brother, who was reading the paper. Her hands were folded on her lap like a kid determined not to get into trouble anymore. I sat down. She poured herself some more coffee.

“So?” I asked her. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” she said. There was no way she was going to miss our rafting trip scheduled for later that morning.

“Are you sure you're feeling well enough to go?” my brother asked, looking up at her from the paper, tugging on his thin-as-silk hair.

“I wouldn't miss it for the world,” she said, getting up from that table, swinging her leopard print sarong around her waist and tying it in a knot.

“Mom, I think you're going to need to wear shorts,” he said.

“I don't wear shorts.”

A couple hours later, my brother, his two local buddies, Carlos and Pablo, and a crazy Californian surfer dude named Scott, our rafting guide for the day, loaded the van with life vests and paddles and strapped the raft to the roof.

“You ready to rock the Naranjo?” Scott shouted, climbing behind the wheel.

“You betcha,” my mother yelled out without hesitation.

“Not really,” I said, staring at the green streak in his blond hair.

“The river is a pussycat,” he said, and skidded down the dirt road.

The bumpy back roads were starting to make me feel carsick. I looked out the window and tried to focus on the trees and the sky. It was a glorious day. Sunny. No clouds. Not too hot.

We parked the car alongside a grassy road. My mother lifted some paddles onto her shoulder, her sunglasses concealing her hangover. I carried a string of life vests on each arm and the boys hoisted the raft up and over their heads. Together, we schlepped the equipment through the rocky terrain for what seemed like half a mile. Finally, the river came into view. It was brown and opaque. I didn't want to get into water I couldn't see through.

The boys, looking as rugged as the landscape in their ripped T-shirts and beat-up baseball caps, tossed the raft into the water and held it in place. My mother waded in after them. “Oooooh, it's sooooo cold,” she cried. I fastened my Velcro sandals on tight before climbing over the slippery rocks in my black bathing suit and cutoff jean shorts. I handed everyone a vest. My mother handed me a paddle. Her long, blond hair was shimmering in the sun, her pink frosted lipstick looked out of place against the craggy riverbank, and her pink cotton pullover dress did not look up to the challenge of the river. We all held onto the raft as we listened to Scott give us the rundown:

“Okay, dudes, seriously. There are a few things you have to know, so listen up,” he said. “One, if you fall out of the raft, never swim headfirst, make sure your feet are in front of you. Two, never try to stand up. Your feet could get caught in between two rocks and you could drown. I'm serious dude. And I guess the other thing you gotta know is that you have to avoid the rocks. Paddle hard and follow my cue.”

Hearing Scott call us “dudes” made me want to run back to the van. Were we really going to get into a raft with this kid? Why wasn't my mother concerned? Whatever. I was tired of playing the heavy. What was the worst that could happen?

“You ready to rock out like a motherfucker?” Scott screamed as if he were about to dive into a mosh pit.

I turned to Carlos and Pablo to make sure they weren't looking at my mother, and then to my mother to make sure she wasn't looking at Carol or Pablo.

Everyone piled in.

By the time I got my right leg over the lip of the raft, all the seats were taken except for the front position. Scott waited for me to get situated and then pushed off with his paddle. Just like that, we were headed down the river at a clip, trees and rocks and birds passing us by. The water was fairly calm. We barely had to paddle. Carlos and Pablo were speaking to each other in Spanish. Michael was telling my mother to be careful not to lose her sunglasses-she had already lost two pairs on the trip so far. I asked Scott, “Have you ever been on a trip and had someone fall out?”

“Not only do we lose a person each trip, but that person is almost always where you're sitting!” Everyone burst into laughter. Except me.

Then the rapids picked up.

“Paddle, paddle, paddle,” Scott screamed out. “Hard left,” he yelled. “Hard right.” Water was splashing in our faces. The paddles were heavy and slick. My foot kept slipping. With every bounce, I grew more certain that I was going over. My mother, on the other hand, couldn't stop screaming with delight. I could see her breasts bouncing up and down out of the corner of my eyes. I worried they might fall out of her bathing suit. And then BAM! The raft hit an enormous boulder and capsized. Everyone fell out.

The rush of the rapids ripped off one of my sandals and pulled me under water. I couldn't see anything or anyone. I held my breath, so I wouldn't swallow water, and reached my arms out for the raft. The surface was too wet and too smooth to hold. I found the rope and grabbed it with both hands and held on tight. I lifted my head and saw Scott running alongside the river. All at once, he jumped into the raft, like a stunt double from Indiana Jones, and managed to maneuver it over to shore, tugging me along with it.

I got out and stood on the mud, my legs shaking violently. Carlos and Pablo walked toward me from further up the river.

I screamed out, “Where are my mother and brother?”

They said nothing.

“Where are they?” I screamed again, my voice becoming hysterical.

“They're down the river,” Scott said.

I flipped around to look at him.

“I saw them go down,” he said in a whisper. He looked less like a badass rocker and more like a little boy who wanted his mommy. I wanted my mommy too.

Clouds were starting to form in what had been a perfect sky. The boulders now looked like enemy soldiers, scattered strategically in the water, intimidating us, daring us to get back in. I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't believe that I actually wished my father were there.

“Come on. Quick. We have to find them,” Scott said, grabbing my vest, yanking me into the raft.

Carlos and Pablo remained silent as we headed back down the river.

100 meters.

200 meters.

1/2 a mile.

1 mile.

Where were they? Why was it taking so long to find them? Please God! Please let them be okay. I'll be nicer. Really, I will be. I was surprised to find myself praying. The only other times I had prayed to God were during my brother's surgeries. I remember being in the waiting area at Mount Sinai, silently saying, “Please God, make him be okay. I'm sorry I've been mean to him.” I thought his illness was my fault. The same feeling hit me again. As if somehow it were my fault they were lost on the river-as if my anger and jealousy had killed them.

“There they are! Over there!” Scott yelled, pointing to a muddy embankment.

My mother was flat on her back. My brother was squatting down beside her. And fifteen local kids were swarming around them like bees.

She wasn't moving.

“Faster,” I screamed.

Scott paddled harder and steered us over.

I got out of the raft and ran. The kids moved back so I could get to her. Was she dead? Please God, no.

I heard her cough and started to cry. She was alive! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I bent down and kissed her face, which was cold and clammy and smudged with makeup, black mascara running down her cheeks like Tammy Faye Bakker. She was spitting up water. Her skin was blotchy.

“Mommy, are you okay? Are you okay?” I asked.

“She's okay,” my brother said, his hand planted on her shoulder.

“Are you okay?” I asked my brother.

“It was a rough ride,” he said. “She was heading down the river face first, so I went in after her.” Then he mouthed, “We almost lost her.”

I kissed his hand and then kissed her face again.

“Kimmi, please, don't. I need to breathe,” she sputtered. I backed away and stared at her. She just had a near-death experience-shouldn't she be clinging to me like a newborn?

“We have to get back in the raft,” Scott said. “We have less than a mile to go before the van picks us up.”

“No,” my mother cried.

“Loryn, you have to,” Scott said with surprising maturity. “You'll be okay. We have one more fall, but then we're home free. You've survived the worst of it.”

The boys, who seemed more like men now, helped my mother up and walked her over to the raft. They lifted her legs one at a time and set her down in the middle. Everyone took a seat on the edge of the raft, surrounding her on all sides. Scott pushed off slowly, heading us back down the river another mile, swerving in and out of rapids without a hitch.

I kept an eye on my mother the entire time. She was a shivering mess. I had seen her cry before. I had seen her face turn red from too much wine. I had seen her look like a scared animal with my father. But I had never seen her look like this.

When we got back to the hotel, my mother showered first. She was in there for a long time, so I knocked on the door. “Hey, Mom, you okay in there?” I was scared she had fallen down. I was surprised she could stand at all. I knocked again, “Mom, you okay?”

“Yes, Kimmi, I'm fine,” she said, and opened the door, her face fresh and clean. She had a glow about her, an I-almost-died-and-saw-the-light glow. Even her turquoise necklace seemed to scream, “I'm alive.”

“Wow, you look beautiful,” I said.

“Thanks, Kimmi,” she said, pulling me in for a hug.

“What happened?”

“I'm not sure what happened,” she said, walking over to the edge of the bed and sitting down. “I was heading down headfirst being bounced like a rag doll off boulders. Mikey came in after me, screaming at me to swim. But I couldn't. I had swallowed too much water. I was too weak. I was dying. I really was. I saw my friend Lucrezia in the sky. I saw my mother. And all I kept thinking was, I can't die here in front of my children. I've just started to live. Then Mikey screamed again, 'You better fucking swim or you're going to fucking die.' I had been clutching my paddle in one hand and my sunglasses in the other, and in that moment, I let go. Mikey caught up with me, grabbed my life vest and turned me around. I put my foot down, even though I wasn't supposed to, and got myself over to safety.”

“I love you so much. I'm so glad you're alive,” I said, squeezing her hand, not able to fathom life without her.

Something shifted. For the first time since the divorce, I was happy that she looked pretty and young. I was happy she was breathing and smiling. So what if she wanted to dance with a twenty-one-year old? Or drink too much wine? Or swim drunk at 2AM? God bless her. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1) Kimberlee uses tarot more as a Rorschach inkblot test than a tool for divination. Kimberlee sees her life in the cards, and the cards help illuminate the lessons she has already learned. Her reading serves as a reminder of who she is and what she already knows. Do you think we project our meaning onto everything and find our own meaning or do you believe in divine inspiration?

2) In today's world, more and more is expected of women. It's not enough to have a heavy hitter career, you have to a family too, and you have to know how to juggle everything, including staying fit and looking young and beautiful. Where does this standard of perfection for women come from? Is it possible for a woman to have it all? What are some ways to combat this pressure to be perfect and to find peace about your own individual journey?


3) The overriding message in The Devil, The Lovers & Me is: Let go of the past. Let go of future expectations. Live in the present. How realistic is this way if living in the world? If you are an ambitious person with the desire to manifest certain dreams, a particular job, a family, etc, what is the line between going after what you what and appreciating what you have? If you tend to obsess over the past, how can you put it behind you? If your dreams don't seem to be happening, is there a way to remain hopeful? How can we stand up and claim our most authentic, most beautiful lives? How can we feel free?

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