The Axeman's Jazz

response to what Skip had said that she hardly knew how to answer. Finally she settled on “You must have just come from a really good meeting.”
    “Oh, I did. I did! I’m so sorry you’re feeling bad—I know I must sound heartless, but it isn’t that.”
    Delighted to hear it.
    “It’s that I’ve been there. I started going to these meetings because I felt like you do. I guess I was depressed. Oh, I hate that word, it’s so clinical. Anyway, I felt like you’re feeling now. And look at me now. Have you ever seen a happier person? I’m just trying to tell you—by example, my own living example—that you’ll be better, that the whole Earth is getting better, not worse; we’re going to be saved, the world really isn’t going to end, no matter how it seems. Really. It’s a new age.”
    “I don’t know, Di. The Age of Aquarius was supposed to be dawning a few years back—isn’t it a little soon for another one?”
    Di laughed her curiously flute-like laugh. “I think it
is
the Age of Aquarius, coming to flower. The Earth is going to be saved and the youthening is coming.”
    “The youthening? Is that something I should know about?”
    “Oh, it’s just a word I use. It’s not a movement or anything. I just mean we’re all getting younger. Don’t you feel it?”
    “I’m not sure.” She took a long swallow of her drink, kind of a short vacation. “Well, to tell you the truth, I guess I really don’t.”
    “You will, though. Because everything is connected and you won’t be able to miss it. These groups we go to, for instance; they’re all connected to other groups. And the whole thing is connected to a worldwide movement that’s setting new paradigms.”
    So foreign were the words that Skip couldn’t even be sure Di was speaking English, but she found herself feeling oddly buoyant, wanting to believe it, whatever it was.
    “Things are getting better,” Di continued. “Things are definitely getting better. I am a goddess and I decree it.”
    She smiled so seductively that Skip really thought she could buy the whole thing. The crazy, cock-eyed optimism was catching. Skip sipped again. “A goddess,” she said.
    “Of course. All women are goddesses. The faster we can accept that fact, the sooner the youthening can take place, because, of course, to recognize our divinity is to acknowledge our own immortality.”
    Skip decided for the moment to treat her as if she were sane. “Let me get something straight,” she said. “Are you saying you actually believe we’re immortal?”
    Di laughed, and the sound was like wind chimes. Expensive ones. “You must think I’m crazy. Of course I don’t mean literally immortal—not in linear time (except for being reborn, of course). I mean in real time. Linear time has nothing to do with the cycles of time, which are real time, as you’ll know if you’re tuned in to the valence of the youthening, and live food, and nurturing the inner child. Which I know you are because of where I met you.”
    “Well, I’m trying to get tuned in. But last night was only my first meeting. I really think it’s going to be important to me to feel close to the people there.”
    “Oh, I do too. And don’t you find you do when they share?”
    “I felt very simpatico with you. I found myself wondering about you and wanting to know more.”
    Di didn’t answer, merely basked in expected praise like the goddess she was, used to but still enjoying the adoration of the multitudes.
    Come to think of it,
Skip thought
, that’s not so far from a perfect definition of the Southern belle.
    “You mentioned a daughter. I noticed because—” Skip stopped in mid-sentence. She had been about to remark that the daughter must be about her age, but suddenly realized that a woman expecting a magical “youthening” might not care to be reminded that she had grown children.
    “Did I?” said Di. “Sometimes I feel like I’m channeling in there. I never really know what I’m going to say and I can’t remember it afterward.”
    “You definitely mentioned a daughter. I just wondered what she’s like; how old she is.”
    “Oh, I never discuss age.” She brought her glass to her lips, pulled it away at the last minute. “Because it’s so false. It means nothing in real time.”
    “Of course.” She let a beat pass, wondering where to go next. “Do you have any other children?” she said at last. The child who’d been attacked had been a boy.
    “The hardest