The Tarot Reader, page 15
Far down the street, two headlights appeared, so I rushed to the car and hastily stubbed the joint out and put it back in the Altoids tin. The last thing I wanted was a charge for possession on top of breaking and entering.
But we’re doing something nice! I’d tell the officers with red eyes. Kind of!
I got in the car and peeked over the dashboard. As the headlights approached, it became clear it wasn’t a police car. That would have made me sigh with relief if it weren’t for the fact that they came to a stop about a hundred feet from me and idled in the middle of the road.
What were they doing? Had they seen me or what house I’d come from? My mind raced and the two small puffs I’d taken had given me a fuzzy head, but now it was cut through with anxiety. Stop being paranoid. But hadn’t my childhood with my parents been a good indicator that I should be paranoid? That people sometimes are out to get you?
The truck began moving again and was now close enough that I could see two men, both wearing baseball caps, which cast shadows over everything but their mouths. One took a long drag from his cigarette, making the end cast an amber glow on the scruffy five o’clock shadow along his jaw.
My stomach churned as they neared me. Please drive by, please, please, I begged as I ducked down behind the dash. All that I could see was the slow, steady approach of the headlights. The truck rumbled, and from the vibration of the engine, I could tell they were idling right beside me.
I needed to lock the doors, but it was such an old car that there was no way to lock it other than by manually pulling up the lock on each door. I yanked the driver’s side lock, but it was jammed firmly in place.
I peeked over the dash again just as two men opened their car doors and stepped out. My heart pounded as I crawled into the back seat and crouched down, hoping they hadn’t seen me. If they were eyeing this car to steal it, hopefully they’d take one look at the piece of junk and move along.
One of the men rapped on the window, and unable to control my fear, I let out a yelp. I was certain the man was going to lurch inside and drag me out. Or worse, he would come inside with me.
“Can you step out of the car, please?” one of the men said.
“Rather not,” was all I could think to say. My voice was flippant, trying to play it cool, but my heart was racing.
“You live in this neighborhood, ma’am?” I didn’t answer, and he yanked the car door open.
“You can’t open my door,” I shouted. “That’s breaking and entering.” The irony of the accusation wasn’t lost on me, even as my pulse raced.
“Ma’am, I asked if you lived here.”
The fear coursing through my body kept me from speaking.
“I asked you—”
“No, I don’t live here. I’m visiting a friend,” I finally spat out.
“Who’s your friend?”
“No offense, but I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
“Is that so?”
I nodded petulantly. “For all I know, you could follow me back to their house. You seem like the type—hanging out in the street, following women into their cars.”
He winced like I’d slapped him in the face. “That’s literally the opposite of what I’m doing. We’re with the neighborhood watch.”
“That’s nice. Maybe you should get back to the watching part instead of the breaking into people’s cars part.”
“Without proof you’re visiting a resident, you need to leave, or we’ll call the police.” He took a step back and motioned to his friend.
I set my jaw in defiance. “I didn’t realize I needed a permission slip to visit friends. Sorry, my daddy forgot to sign it.”
His friend approached, and I pushed myself even farther back into the seat. The man had his phone at the ready, and on the screen were three glaring numbers: 911. I watched in terror as his thumb hovered over the green circle at the bottom of the screen, ready to connect.
* * *
Jade
* * *
While waiting on Stevie to return, I pulled three value-sized boxes of baking soda out of my bag, along with three plastic bowls and essential oils. I set the bowls around the room, filling them with baking soda doused in peppermint oil to soak up the paint smell. If Lisa walked in here and it smelled like a hardware store, she would know we were trying to pull the wool over her eyes.
When I was done, I went around to each window on the sides of the house and cracked them just enough to let fresh air in but not enough to be visible from the street.
I was bent over stirring the paint with a wooden stick when I paused. I’d thought I’d heard a man’s voice outside. I knelt on the floor between the sofa and the wall and crawled over to the front window. With a shaking hand, I pulled back the curtain less than half an inch and peered out. Two men were standing in front of our car, the driver’s door gaping open. I flinched as I heard Stevie arguing with them.
I had to do something. But what? Distract? Pretend I was Lisa and don her bathrobe so I could go outside and curse at them for making too much noise? No, they could be neighbors, and they’d know even in the dark I wasn’t Lisa. I’d have to distract.
I crept to the cracked kitchen window and crawled through it. I crouched behind a gardenia bush, peeking over to get a better view of the street. One of the men was showing his phone screen to Stevie, his voice verging on shouting. I nearly sprinted forward as Stevie stepped out, clenching the drop cloth to her chest, and my heart ached at the sight, the memories surfacing of her cowering as a child with her stuffed animals gripped to her in the same way. The man put his phone in his pocket, clearly appeased by her cooperation.
Stevie and the men exchanged more words and my entire body shook, my mind conjuring up all realms of possible conversations, and each was worse than the next.
On instinct, I picked up a landscaping rock and inched forward to another bush, closer to the street. I raised the rock behind me, ready to launch it into one of the cars down the road in a last-ditch effort to distract the men. They were still speaking, but it was so low now that there was no chance I’d make out a single word. Stevie stood stock-still in the street, and I knew by her posture, even in the dark, that she was petrified.
Stevie pulled out her own phone and held it up to them. Whatever was on her screen appeased the men, and they walked to their truck, leaving Stevie standing in the street. I peeked out from behind the bush and hissed out, “Pssst!”
Stevie took two shambling steps, then caught her stride. When she reached me, I dragged her to the open kitchen window.
“What was that? Who were those men?” I blurted out.
“Neighborhood watch.” Her response was flat and distant, her mind elsewhere. She didn’t elaborate.
“What did they say?”
“They were asking why I was here,” she said. “They were about to call the cops, so I lied and said we were surprising a friend by painting their nursery while they were in the hospital.”
“And they bought it?”
“Only when I showed them this.” She pulled out her phone and showed me a picture of a freshly born baby, held by a woman in a hospital gown.
“Who the hell is that?”
“My friend just had a baby last week. It was the only thing I could think of in the moment.”
“You’re a genius,” I said with a laugh, but she didn’t laugh with me. “You handled that better than I could have,” I said, and reached out to loop my arm through hers, but she yanked it away. I studied her face. “What’s wrong?”
“They almost called the cops on me, Jade. What would have happened to me if they did?”
“It turned out fine, though.”
“Just barely. I’m sick of just barely being fine,” she said.
“Can you please just come inside with me and help me finish this?”
She sighed. “I’m really tired of all this.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” This time she let me loop my arm into hers. I ushered her back into the house, where for the next four hours we scraped and sanded away Lisa’s moldy ceiling and slapped on two new coats of paint. It was just past three in the morning by the time we finished, and we drove back in silence, not even the radio playing.
When we got back to the apartment, Stevie rushed in ahead of me, not bothering to even turn on lights as she hurried upstairs and slammed the door to her room.
CHAPTER
23
Stevie
A GROUP OF SIX stood across from me in the dim theater lobby. It was the day of the public séance, something we’d never done before and was make-or-break for our business. That’s how everything felt these days—a dance too close to the edge, each decision made out of desperation and a sad inkling of hope that we’d come out of this okay. The only thing comforting us was the fact that the Pulaskis had called us this morning to let us know Lisa’s ring had sold. It filled the glaring hole in our wallet just enough for comfort, and if the Nichols gave us our reward money, we would be able to afford the rent increase and things would finally settle down. The feeling of hope was strange, lingering in my periphery in a way I wasn’t used to.
The sitters had arrived ahead of the crowd as requested, but my eyes still darted around, waiting for the small audience we were allowing to watch to show up too early and ruin everything. I studied the sitters and knew Jade was doing the same. To select who was here tonight, I’d created two automated raffles on our website: one to select the sitters and the other the audience. We’d advertised both as being completely random and anonymous through a raffle software, but in reality the contact data they’d entered into the form went straight into our inbox, where we’d secretly weeded out over one hundred applicants that we thought would be too difficult to read or would be too disruptive based on their online presence or any previous knowledge of them. One of the audience applicants had been Maria, eager to drum up drama for a story, and Jade had deleted her name from the list with a smug, satisfied smile.
“If you’ll follow me,” Jade said to the sitters, “I have a room for you all to place your coats and belongings. It’s necessary to separate ourselves from material objects that may hold a distracting energy.”
A woman in a neon-pink jacket spoke up. “I’m not leaving my stuff with anyone. No way.” A few of the other sitters murmured in agreement.
“I understand and knew you might feel that way, so I’ll be locking the door and giving one of you the key for safekeeping until the séance is over. Morgan, would you do the honors?”
Morgan’s chest puffed up with pride as she became the de facto leader of the group of sitters, and she nodded, all her suspicions out the window. Her social media had been rampant with New Age ideology and digital flyers for workshops she led on Reiki and acupuncture. It had been easy to plan ahead, knowing she’d eagerly accept leadership.
Little did the sitters know that if you twisted the handle and lifted it as hard as you could to the right, the latch would give, and voilà—you had full access to the sitters’ personal belongings.
And as Jade took them back to deposit their items for safekeeping, they had no idea I’d follow behind three minutes later to avail myself of that access.
I entered the back room and closed the door behind me. I bounced on the balls of my feet and tried to shake off the heady mix of adrenaline and anxiety that was making me breathe so quickly the room was starting to spin.
Jade’s voice through the wall was a soothing drone, but despite that, my heart raced. I didn’t have much time, and the choreography today was tight. There wasn’t a second to spare. The sitters’ bags and coats lay across the chairs and tables in the small office, and I knew what I had to do. I started with the purses first. We women carry a snapshot of our lives in our bags without realizing it: medications, cosmetics, not to mention the glorious trove of information on cell phones. I zipped open a small black purse and took out the phone with shaking hands. I needed to move quickly.
Shit. It had a passcode. I put it back in the bag and rifled through the compartments. Bingo—a prescription bottle for warfarin. I was clueless about its purpose, and adrenaline pumped as I pulled out my phone to look it up. I was lucky the theater had open WiFi; otherwise we would have been screwed, both for looking up small details like this and for communicating during the séance. The search results told me the prescription was an anticoagulant, a medication to stop blood clots. Jade could do something with that. I texted her the information, along with the patient’s name on the bottle: Emily Benson.
I had only five more minutes to gather information for Jade before the sitters and the small audience were seated. The following items I found had potential as well, including a gold Alcoholics Anonymous chip for ninety days sober and a funeral program that helpfully listed one of the sitters as the son of the deceased along with the Bible verse he’d read at the service.
With just three minutes left before Jade was to begin, I returned the sitters’ belongings exactly as they were and walked to the lobby. Jade would have just two minutes before the séance began to read and digest the information I’d texted her.
* * *
Jade
* * *
After the sitters draped their coats and bags over whatever surface they could find in the back room, they followed me onto the stage, where I’d placed a circular table with a black tablecloth along with five creaky metal fold-out chairs provided by the theater. It was five o’clock now, Stevie’s cue to let the audience of thirty into the lobby, where she was waiting with a guest list, our appointment book, and a display of items for sale.
As the sitters took their seats, Andrew, a middle-aged man, said nervously, “You can hear the people waiting in the lobby from here.” The group chuckled, an air of anxious excitement palpable.
“Before we let the audience into the theater,” I said after they’d all been seated, “we’re going to center ourselves. It’s crucial that we maintain focus as a group; otherwise I may begin to pick up on energy from the audience.”
They nodded eagerly, ready to do anything to convince the spirits to ignore the crowd and gift them with something spectacular—some sort of proof that we continued on after death. Some sort of hope that their existence wasn’t just a blip in history.
I led them through a series of statements, affirming that they had no ill will and were open to receiving whatever was channeled through me. The final step was one I didn’t always do but added a certain amount of physical drama that heightened sitters’ reception to my performance.
I stood and lit the same bundle of sage I’d used at Lisa’s, and a plume of smoke drifted upward and trailed behind me as I circled the table. Their heads twisted to watch as I circled around once, then twice, in complete silence.
“Looks like what I used to smoke in college,” the oldest man in the group joked, but Morgan, taking her duty as key holder very seriously, shushed him. He shifted in his seat as he rolled his eyes.
Once I was done, I placed the sage on a glass tray in the middle of the table alongside a thick white candle, which I lit with a flourish. “I’ll be letting in the audience now. Please remember to maintain focus.” I walked up the aisle to the double doors, knowing Stevie was standing guard on the other side. There was a small alcove next to the doors that was completely shadowed in darkness, and I stepped into it, pulling out my phone. I sighed in relief as I saw that Stevie had found useful information on the sitters and this wouldn’t be a cold reading. I digested it as quickly as I could, repeating the details in my head as I opened the doors.
Blood clot. Dead dad. Alcoholic.
It was a brutal reduction of three complex people into a single useful fact, but it had to be done for this to work. I shoved my phone in my pants pocket and rapped on the door, letting Stevie know I was coming. I swung the doors open and greeted the small crowd with a smile. “Welcome to the séance.”
The crowd filtered in, and Stevie guided them to the front four rows in the middle section of the theater. She was just a shadow as she slipped out of the room.
I began as I usually did, asking the attendees to raise their palms upward, showing their willingness to communicate with the spirits. Ease them in, I reminded myself, pushing away the adrenaline surging through me.
Brenda would be first. After a few moments of silence, I let my eyes roll back into my head and swayed. “I’m dizzy. Seeing double.” I began to tremble, letting my jaw chatter. “I can’t stop shaking.” I closed my eyes as I shivered, holding on to the edge of the table as though I would fall out of my chair. I took a sharp inhale and regained my composure.
“Brenda,” I said, and she stared back at me, not saying a word. Based on her age—I guessed close to sixty—the chances were low that her grandparents were still alive. “Your grandparents are proud of you.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Proud of me?”
“ ‘Ninety,’ they keep saying. Ninety… there is some significance to this number.”
“Yesterday I was ninety days sober. I got my gold chip.” Her smile was proud, rightfully so.
“Congratulations. Your grandparents were with you while you detoxed, and yesterday when you received your chip.”
“I highly doubt that. My grandparents didn’t speak to me for years before they died.” She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms across her chest.
I fought against the urge to tense at the volleyed information. I nodded as though I already knew this. The lie came easily. “They distanced themselves from you because of your addiction. They didn’t want to enable you,” I said, trying to drum up the language they used in AA. My dad had gone to two measly meetings, but he constantly mocked the terminology they used. “They worried the relationship would become codependent.”
Her mouth was slightly agape, her cheeks flushed. “Well,” she stuttered, “that makes so much sense. I thought they hated me. Thank you.”
A wave of small smiles and wide eyes moved through the theater, and I took a calming breath. This is going to go well, I told myself. Off to a good start.
