His Holiness walks across the Barnes & Noble parking lot, lifts saffron robes above the puddles. Acolytes fuss around him, one with a parasol. Another carries his Blackberry, shields it from the rain.

"Who has the keys?"

They pat arms, robe pockets. "Ah," says one, pulls the leathered ring from his sleeve, reluctantly hands it over. Blackberry monk whispers "Don't forget! We'll need the final draft for the White House meeting and--"

"Yes, Yes."

The senior monk says: "Are you sure you want to drive yourself? We don't want--"

"Yes, yes!" His Holiness opens the door, gets in, turns, shuts the door. Beams up at their anxious faces. Slips the key in and twists. The Prius hums gently to life.

"I. Have. Errands." he mouths at them, gives a thumbs up, and pulls out of the space.

The four of them huddle under the black parasol, silk robes clinging, shivering. They watch him drive off, stop short at the light, pull up, signal, and turn too slowly into traffic; the answering swerves and honks make them gasp and cringe as His Holiness disappears into the grey blur of rush hour.

"He forgot his Blackberry," a monk says. A collective sigh, then they scurry to the ashram van.

In traffic he calms himself. These signings are tiring. He enjoys the smiles, the warmth. There were a few, as usual: too intense, unblinking, rictus grins, who take his hand, clutch his sleeve. One made a sing-song accusation, incomprehensible: "Who is the true God-head? who is the paraclete of kaborca?" Security was called.

He sighs. Nuts. More annoying are the fippies, the rich dilettante uber-Buddhists who glide instead of walk. Genuflecting to him like he was Marie Antoinette. They inevitably show off, ask for some arcane finesse about the subtle meanings of the 4th Noble Truth, or moksha viz nirvana, or Taoist essentialism and it's relation to perfect compassion.

He feels a twinge of guilt: he always allows himelf a few hundred milliseconds of passive, invisible disdain before answering them. Some brief pertinent clarification, or mild comment. It gives them such smug satisfaction.

Someday he'd like to fly them off to the leper colony he visited that time, give them a hammer, have them dirty their Birkenstocks a little.

Grins: he liked that one frumpy lady, the really happy one, with the soup on her shirt, who waited so patiently. Who said: "Mr. Lama I read your last book and it helped me so much! I get along so much better now with my neighbor's noisy dog!"

Huh. Tell me about it. I wanted to give her a hug, he thinks, looking put the side window.

Startled: The guy in the big pickup behind him revs, honks, honks again. He glances back, slows, rolls the window half-way -- wet! the rain is worse -- waves him around. The guy races alongside, too close, blaring hard, his middle finger framed in the cab window as he races ahead.

He glances down, picks up the list from the seat nearby: Kotex maxipads, orange diet soda, egg noodles, lactaid 2%, cauliflower, Top Ramen noodles chicken flavor, kettle chips, and something...blueberry galuchers? gulshers? Geez, he thinks, I wish i didn't have to do this.

He peers ahead, speeds up wipers. That Rite-Aid has a weird entrance, shared with a Taco Bell. Ah, here it is! He hits the brake, signals. Another honk behind him.

He pulls up near the door, rolls the list, fishes around behind his seat for the shorty umbrella. Stuck under the seat, under piles of the girls' gym shorts and discarded quizzes and juice boxes. He moves the seat up: crrack. Reaches back, pulls it free: split handle, thin wires bent, the fabric torn. He pushes the button: it hesitates, then frip-bzzanngch! explodes into the steering wheel. One metal spindle sticks in the seam along the horn pad.

"Damn", mutters His Holiness. He yanks it free, opens the door, turns, fishes for the iPhone from the console, then sprints inside.

Inside he shakes himself. The umbrella closes halfway. The list is smeary but legible. The iPhone glistens. He dumps everything into a two-handled red basket. The iPhone rings at once: "I kissed a girl and I liked it" -- the clerk and two shoppers turn to see. He stalks down the nearest aisle, fumbling to find 'Answer'.

"Hello?"

"Dad are you coming home? I do need the car Crystal and I are doing a project for AP 'sosh and we have to pick up Will because him and Crystal were fighting yesterday and she wants me to invite him but I know so don't say it OK? we'll do the project first he'll play Wii while he waits then we're going to Rachel's so will you be home by 5? Dad?

He tracks "I need the car.." and zones the rest.

"Yes, Anna Lee, I willl be home soon. I am at Rite-Aid--"

"Rite-Aid?!"

"--with your list and--"

"OK thanks don't use my phone and don't go looking at my private texts or Facebook."

"Well, honey, I'm only using it because you left it in the car this morning. Elise broke mine last week so--"

"And don't get it wet." pause, clipped: "Please."

Click.

He stops by the Dr. Scholl's display. He stares at blue gel insoles. He looks at the iPhone, uses his inner sleeve, smears the damp around.

"Ach." He looks around --all alone-- crouches, pulls the low hem way up, takes the inner cloth layer and mops the screen dry.

In the next aisle he finds tampons. Too many choices. 'Maxipads' is a brand, apparently. He picks up box after box, reading the back and side panels, consults the list again. Mutters: "Geez Louise."

A stout woman with a fidgety boy reaches around him and authoritatively grabs two boxes. He turns, smiles at her, tries to formulate the right question, but she evil eyes him and hustles away. "I want a hot Wheel!" the boy says.

Stares for a moment at the rack. He grabs two "strengths" and dumps them in the red bin. Finishes his shopping.

Standing in line. Finally at the register, the 20-something with a nose-ring says: "Hey, you're the Lama dude!"

Smiles. The kid smiles, and hands him his change. As he crosses the security portal on the way out the alarm goes off. He freezes.

"S'OK, it does that when it rains. You're all wet. Just step through. I know you're cool, you're the Lama dude. Just step through. Go ahead. Step through! Yeah! Peace, man!"

The kid says to the next customer, the stout woman with the screaming boy --"Hot Wheel, PLEEEEAAASSSE!"-- "Hey that was the Dahalia Lama!"

By the time he gets home it stops raining. The sun cracks through the low, fleeing clouds. In the kitchen Anna Lee looks suspicious. He sets down the thin plastic bags, one topples; the 2 liter diet orange soda falls to the floor, bounces, rolls. They both watch. It doesn't explode. He picks it up; feels too full, too tight.

"Don't open this for a while."

"Where's my phone?"

He hands it over. She turns it on, stabs angrily, quickly, "humphs" while he unpacks the bags. She slips it in her back pocket.

"You'll sit on it and crack it like you did the last one. You should get a case."

"What's this?" she asks, holding up the tampon boxes.

"Um, I couldn't, I wasn't sure, I couldn't tell, you wrote 'Maxi' and--"

Looks of exggerated exasperation, incredulity, supreme contempt, a sort of snort/sigh/expectorative bleet; she dumps the boxes on the counter and flounces off to the TV room.

"I did my best!"

"O-KAY!"

He puts everything away. He thinks about that Chinese delegate who 'accidentally' rode the elevator with him last month, and what they discussed. He turns it all over in his mind, formulates a response he might pass back to Beijing thru the White house. Rejects this phrase, that. Something new occurs to him: he instantly loves the poetic compassion of it, the subtlety. He pauses, Ramen in hand. Too subtle. It's time for a tougher stand. Back, forth, the words go, re-arrange, as he looks in vain for where Renee keeps the Ramen. Or any kind of noodle. He leaves it on the counter.

From the room beyond: "Did you get cauliflower?"

She knows I didn't. "No, I said already: I went to Rite-Aid. Text your mother. Maybe she can stop on the way home from the barn at Stop N Shop--"

He realizes she has "ok"d and "OK"d and "OK!"d him, so he stops.

"I can't text her because she forgot to pay the cell bill again."

He thinks. "No, she must have paid it because you called me. Try turning off the phone and turning it on again then--"

"I know! O-KAAAYYY!"

Stern: "Don't talk to me like that. I'm your father!"

Quiet. "o.k." Mutters: "Geez."

He goes into the downstairs bathroom. Washing up, he thinks: why is there a razor, a folding comb, twelve hairpins, and two bras on the shower rod down here?

Don't they have a bathroom of their own?

This last question beats to a metronome, feels etched on dusty stone in his heart. He has said it so many times, to the girls, to Renee, to himself. It has lost power, meaning.

He splashes his face. He thinks about the words he used to say at the monastary when he was a kid, the words said again and again, like 'moist' and 'gong' and 'the', repeated and re-written until they became meaningless sounds, squiggles. How easy it was for a bored kid to do this trick.

As he walks outside, through his garden, to his writing and meditation gazebo out by the mower shed, he ponders for the zillionth time the connections between childhood games, the untutored contemplation of meaning and emptiness, the quiet mind.

It always calms him to do this.

Everything sparkles with wetness; the early wild roses and wisteria greet him, envelope him in fragrance and pale color. Violets fill the flagstone cracks below foot. He stops in the massive round entryway, a gift from Japanese Buddhists. The forsythia is finally green, he notices, just a few yellow blooms in the low branches. He sighs, contented.

Two backyards over Arnie Fremerman starts up his electric shears on his boxwoods again. A brief vision of fat Arnie comes to him, in black socks and sandals, fussing daily over his perfectly flat green hedges. He makes, as usual, a loose conection to sand painting; the brzzzing sound of it recedes.

Kids are hollering down the block. He tries and fails to not hear it: someone named Sandy threw the frisbee too hard again and it's on the garage roof again and he has to go get the rake to get it down. Again.

After moments this too recedes in his consciousness, and he steps forward, carefully avoiding the violets, ducks under the deep gazebo eaves and opens the screen door. He settles into his Eames chair. Uncovers his calendar and papers and materials.

He reviews his upcoming schedule:

• next Tuesday, all day: The Clinton Foundation, something about clean water in Kenya. It will be nice to see Bill again. Regular guy. pretty funny, too.

• Wednesday: brunch with Gere; rats: Elise has a competition, her first 2.5' jump show. Gotta go. Hm. Gere want to come?

• Thursday morning: "spontaneous" hallway confab with Obama.

• Friday: 3 pm: colonoscopy with Dr. Greer

• Saturday: work on boxes in garage; Renee attached a note: "can you FINALLY get rid of those college things, sweetie? throw out or goodwill?"

There's an email print out: Fox bugging us again about a 3-way with Newt and Sarah. Must find a way to politely decline.

He puts down his purple Pilot Precise V5 pen, closes his eyes, straightens his spine. The smell of schnauzer poop wafts over from next door, penetrating the floral. The Wollenchowski's porch door slides open with a clatter -- fix that please. Grill lid bangs open, Phil cursing. The inevitable ripping of plastic. Soon the sizzle of cheap patties, the smell of A-1 and meat.

Car motor out front, ignition off, car doors. He strains automatically to read the mood algorithm of slams, high notes in voices, Selected Words.

Not good. Elise wants to go out. But her room this morning looked like several jeans grenades went off, taking with them all panties, socks, shirts, hoodies, and scarves. Burying, under drifts of clothes, last week's sleepover pizza boxes. Three days of Yoo-Hoo bottles.

From opposite ends of the first floor:

Renee: "...'til there's not one single...don't give me...I don't care, not until...I get up JUST as early..."

Door slams.

Elise: "...right, you DON'T care, even...I kno-ow!...I SAID OK!...O0KKKAAAAYYY!"

Door slams.

Both voices back in kitchen: "...all right, get it clean and you can..." "...and I WILL, I said I will, you don't ever listen..."

The sudden sound: ashlrullschluchschshshshs as diet orange soda erupts, a phony-citrus vesuvius. His Holiness thinks: sticky floor.

Quieter voices. Some laughter. He relaxes. Not too bad tonight. He mulls over that final draft for China again.

Two minutes later Renee slides open the kitchen's screen door. She stick her head out, says, too loud: "Hi sweetie we're home, Elise is going out with friends to see Avatar again, when she picks up her room, we have leftover rice, is that OK? Anna already told me she needs the car tonight, dinner in 45 minutes, OK?"

"Mm" he says.

Slides close. Slides open again: "Don't forget those boxes on Saturday. I'll call Goodwill if you want."

"Mm" he says.

Slides close. Slides open again: "Don't let Gere come to the horse show on Tuesday. He distracts the girls. Just cancel. You saw him a couple of weeks ago."

Phil next door, flipping, chuckles. His Holiness rubs his neck.

"OK. Sweetie." he says.

Slides close.

He puts down his pen and gets up, moves to the mat, settles in. Meditation time.

30 seconds later: slides open again. Anna Lee strides over. "I need the keys. And it's on empty again, so I need the card. You always do this, it's not fair. Now I will be late to Crystal's."

In the moments that pass between them the moon moves .0000361 mm further into space, on its inevitable and accelerating track away from Earth. Someday it will be completely free of our gravity and drift alone, out of the solar system. Or perhaps collide with a gas giant. He opens his eyes, finds hers. She softens. "Please?"

His Holiness reaches for his wallet. "The keys are in the kitchen, next to the coffee. Drive safe."

|~