Zach

Like a bobcat, Justin can react with swift violence to situations he finds disturbing: Zach wants to ask his advice, but isn't sure exactly how to ask a personal question of the guardedly private Justin.

"What if Eleanor suddenly moved to Denver..?" Zach tries for starters, hoping it's impersonal enough not to offend his housemate.

"Why would Eleanor move to Denver, Zach?" Justin asks, his voice taking on the flat even calm that precedes his growl, and then his fist. "Well, to escape a difficult situation," Zach presses on: like a wild animal, Justin can be dangerous & unpredictable, but Zach has always felt closer to animals, even wild ones, than other people, and in many ways fears Justin the less for his wild streak. "What situation? Listen, Zach, just tell me why you think Eleanor would move to Denver without telling me," Justin says, growling now. There's the problem, Zach unintentionly roused Justin's most primal fear: Eleanor leaving him. "No, this is hypothetical," Zach explains, "I want to know what you would do, how you would handle that..." Clearly, Zach realizes, Justin would have some kind of nervous breakdown or do something insane & desperate if Eleanor did what Meera did, leaving town, just like that. Justin shakes his head, "I'm not doing hypothetical, just tell me what's on your mind Zach," he insists.

The first question was just a lead in anyway, and Justin answered it by refusing to consider the possibility. "Can we go get a cup of coffee?" Zach asks, "I need some advice." Justin is the only person Zach knows who can help him sort this out.

Zach tells Justin the simplest, most uncomplicated version of the story: a girl he was interested in, maybe loves, moved suddenly to Denver. He'd like to move on, but he misses her, and wonders if he should pursue her. He doesn't bring up the family connection, that her father is his mentor & friend, that he was entrusted with her safety and he feels like some kind of villain in a bad novel, a betrayer of friends & a seducer of a naive virgin every time he would comes close to touching Meera, every time he considered making love to her. Justin asks if he wouldn't rather ask Gavin, the romantic in there house. That's the problem with asking Gavin, his response to a girl's leaving is to get another girl. Zach isn't ready for another girl until he knows what Meera wants to do. "No, Gavin doesn't care which girl he's with, as long as there is a girl. I'm not romantic like that, but there's this one girl, and she felt she had to leave, she told me I had to let her go, it was what she needed to do. Because of her situation," Zach says, trailing off, hoping Justin won't press too much about the 'situation'. Arjun says they won't pressure Meera to marry the man they've chosen, but her mother, Ambika, has been laying the pressure on thick already. Zach suddenly loks Justin in the eyes & asks the question that has been plaguing him for some months, "Justin, what happened in your head when Eleanor moved in? We all saw, even I saw it, and whatever it was the effect has lasted a long time..." and Zach braces himself for Justin's anger.

Ever unpredictable, Justin answers with a quiet reflectiveness, "It's like that story you told me one time, about the cave people." Zach has no idea what story Justin means: his mind immediately rushes back to an undergrad thesis he did for a comparatve religion class, about shamanic traditions & cave paintings, but he hasn't really been interested in shamanism for several years now & can't remember discussing it with Justin. Or what it would have to do with love..."Cave people?" he asks

"The people that lived in the dark cave & never saw the outside world, just shadows? Until someone stumbled in & told them they weren't living in the real world, it was just a cave. But they didn't believe it, right? Well, I had no idea I was living in a cave, until Eleanor walked into it, and lit it up. And now the cave is gone....that's what it was like, Zach, like having your cave blasted open with dynamite & seeing the sun for the first time, realizing you've spent all your life in shadow," Justin explains. Justin has done this before, amazed Zach with his ability to the most abstract ideas into his own concrete reality. Zach laughs, "Plato's Cave? Oh, that's interesting...Her mother would like you, if she would actually talk to you...," he says. Plato's Cave, an oldie but a goodie: Zach has always pitied people like Eleanor's mother, who blind themselves to the true qualities of the people around them, and see only the reality they've created for themselves. But then isn't that the human condition? Zach wonders how he might view his own situation if he could remove his own blinders, whatever they might be, that prevent him from understanding why she had to leave, and what he should do now. "You asked my advice, Zach," Justin says, finishing his coffee, "Don't let her just go. Whatever her 'situation', it can be dealt with. Go get her, that's what I would do." There is no doubt, Zach will be sent to Denver, as her parents' envoy. What will Zach have to say for himself, that's the real question...

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