“No,” she said, “no, not at all. The idea is to stagger the days and limit the experience to once a week so the newcomers—the students—can adjust and learn. They attend seminars. They’re assigned readings in the field. And they fill out questionnaires and write up reports of their experiences, which, of course, are different for everyone.”

“And you—you are a student also? Or merely the wife of a student?”

The question took her by surprise. Again: What was she? What were Fanchon, Alice, Peggy, any of them? Why was she in Mexico? Why had she gone to Tim and Dick’s house on alternate Saturdays throughout the fall, winter and spring? She was shaking her head very slowly. “No,” she murmured, “I’m not a student.” A beat went by. She stared into his deep unblinking eyes as if in a trance. “Just,” she said, “a wife.”

“I see,” he said. “But then, if you are not a student of Dr. Leary, then why do you participate in his sessions? Why do you take this drug, which can be quite dangerous, you know that, don’t you?”

She was thinking of the last time, two nights ago, when she and Fitz had gone up to the lifeguard tower and she watched the world peel away, layer by layer, as if she were deconstructing it herself and how when they’d had sex she was able to be both inside and outside her body at the same time and how they’d lain in each other’s arms till dawn. She shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “For enlightenment.”

He just stared at her. His smile had faded, but now it came back. “I see,” he said. “Yes. That makes perfect sense.”

Three days later, the man was back. This time he had another man with him and they were both wearing gun belts and holding black felt hats delicately in their hands, as if afraid of crushing them. She’d just taken a swim and was sitting on the pool deck with Alice, Fanchon and Paulette Roberts, while Tim, who’d been in the conference room working on updating The Tibetan Book of the Dead as a kind of guide to the psychedelic experience, had just come out for a smoke and a breath of fresh air. He was wearing a white cotton T-shirt, white shorts and tennis sneakers, as if to contrast with the two men in black, who had clicked across the patio and down the steps into the pool area. The one she knew—and knew now was no professor—called out, “Dr. Leary, is that you?” in a voice full of false heartiness.