“We like you,” Janet said.

“Just in case,” Laurel said, at the same time, so that the sentiments were tangled.

“We can smell our own,” Serena said.

I thought this was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to me.

As we drank, Serena read to us from her biography of Milarepa, the famous Tibetan yogi. Once he achieved enlightenment, we learned, he could not only levitate but fly around at will. Of course, before that, he had to live in a cave alone for years on nothing but nettle soup, until he was barely more than bones and covered in a light green fur. Of course, before that, he had to labor for many years in intense spiritual practice. Of course, before that, he had to murder thirty-five people at a party with black magic, an act of vengeance against the slobbering aunt and uncle who had cast him out into the cold. He summoned a hailstorm to bring down the roof. He reveled in the chaos, the destruction, the bloodshed. He danced on their blackened graves. We liked Milarepa. Even if he ultimately reformed.

Of course, Serena explained, her finger in the book, levitation has never been limited to Buddhism, or Hinduism, or any of those arcane, far-off religions that most of the world practices. She reminded us of Saint Joseph of Cupertino, of Thomas Aquinas, of the ascension of Christ. She told us about Saint Teresa of Ávila, who was so shaken by her levitations that when she felt her body begin to rise, she’d call for the nuns to hold her down, as she begged her God with all her might to relieve her of the gift.

Saint Teresa wrote of the experience: “It seemed to me, when I tried to make some resistance, as if a great force beneath my feet lifted me up. I know of nothing with which to compare it; but it was much more violent than other spiritual visitations, and I was therefore as one ground to pieces.” As one ground to pieces. Her face, in painting and in sculpture, is a sublime vision of ecstasy, her mouth opened, her eyes lifted, elevated by God and blood and something, something else.

We drank the whole bottle. Rather, Serena and Laurel drank the whole bottle, while I choked down a few cups and Janet mostly held hers against her breastbone.

“Why aren’t you drinking?” I asked her. A few cups had been enough: the night had become warmer, closer; I felt as though a blanket had been thrown over us, the world outside erased. Out of sight, out of existence. I wanted to stroke Janet’s hair. I wanted to put my fingers in Laurel’s mouth. I had never been drunk before, either.