Psychic City

by Page Turner

  Would she be able to understand what Viv was going through? Viv didn’t know. And Viv also didn’t know if it’d be gauche of her to complain about the stress she felt from her mother’s psychiatric commitment. Because compared to what Penny had gone through, it wasn’t nearly as bad. Viv at least had a mother.

  But Penny had truly surprised her. Penny had never gone there for a minute, hadn’t jumped to comparing tragedies and minimizing Viv’s struggles.

  Instead, Penny’s first words had been. “Oh no, that’s awful. I’m so sorry. When are we going to visit?’

  Just as it had been when she’d been initially visited by emotional avatars, the first time Karen Cross met Viv Lee and Penny Dreadful, she wasn’t completely awake.

  Instead, she was sleeping fitfully in her bed at Nirvana Heights. She’d been inpatient at that point for about two days. It wasn’t her first psychiatric admission, not by a long shot.

  Her time at the One Eighty Acres had failed to deliver on its grandiose promises. Her parents’ aim in sending her away had been to set her on the straight and narrow.

  Her parents weren’t exactly sure if Karen were psychic or simply pretending to be. But either way, One Eighty promised it would do the trick.

  If she were faking being psychic, then surely the courses in attitude adjustment, behavioral therapy, and emotional self-regulation would dissuade her from this ill-fated dishonesty.

  And in the unlikely event that she did have empathic powers, One Eighty pledged that Karen’s stay would result in conversion therapy.

  Instead, Karen had emerged from the program with an empathic sense that was more developed and more powerful than ever.

  Unfortunately, this didn’t come without cost.

  Rather than empathy being something Karen could opt in and out of, her heightened powers instead meant that people’s emotions constantly bombarded her. Karen found herself frequently exhausted.

  And in that exhaustion, she began to go slowly mad.

  She hopped in and out of inpatient psychiatric hospitalization, medicated to the gills, trying any possible treatment that the doctors offered, looking for peace of mind.

  Her latest stint at Nirvana Heights had up until this point been largely unremarkable. Her roommate Tender Lee was a real trip, to be sure, like someone who had escaped from a low-budget production of Gone with the Wind. A vain woman with big hair and an even bigger ego. An incessant talker, clingy, seemingly hellbent on being her friend while they were both committed here.

  Karen had coped so far with just being as quiet as possible, thinking that it might drive her away. But no dice.

  If anything, the silence made Tender even more eager to be dear friends. The spotlight could always be on her any time they hung out.

  Karen had recently resorted to a new tactic, pretending to sleep extra long hours in order to get some kind of break, solitude.

  So far Tender had respected that. She hadn’t yet yakked at Karen while she was sleeping, although Karen wasn’t entirely sure that she might not try it, given enough time and boredom.

  Karen was used to not getting any visitors, so she knew instantly that the strangers in her room were here to see Tender. Karen opened her eyes. She saw a tall redhead with copper-colored eyes who was wearing a pair of paint-stained overalls. Beside her stood a shorter blonde woman in an immaculate pink business suit. And of course there was Tender, because it wasn’t going to be easy to get rid of that woman. Not by a long shot. She seemed to enjoy the inpatient stay, all of the attention the staff paid to her incessant requests, and the indulgently long therapy sessions she insisted on undergoing.

  Karen sat up and prepared as usual to feel Tender’s normal cyclone of emotional highs and lows.

  And yet, she felt nothing.

  She also felt nothing from the visitors.

  What in the world…?

  “And that’s my roommate Karen,” Tenny said. “She’s emo,” she said in a fake whisper – but one that was clearly loud enough for everyone else to hear it.

  “Karen Cross,” Karen said, leaping to her feet and offering her hand. Her sudden extroversion shocked her just as much as it shocked Tender Lee.

  “This is my daughter Viv,” Tenny said, gesturing to the tall redhead. Karen noted that Viv’s eyes seemed to be shifting color every few moments. Well, that was something she hadn’t seen before.

  “And this is my partner Penny,” Viv said, pointing to the blonde woman standing next to her.

  Tenny scowled at the word partner.

  Ah, Karen thought. It’s THAT kind of partner. Without that scowl, there would have been more ambiguity, but Tenny’s expression gave it away. In her rambling, self-indulgent rants, Tenny had let it be known that she didn’t have much respect for same sex relationships. To her they didn’t even really seem to be actual relationships.

  Karen had intentionally refrained from talking about her own sexual orientation, or arguably lack thereof, the fact that gender didn’t matter nearly as much to her as how she felt about the person in question, their character, their values, how well they meshed – or didn’t. Or the fact that while she found sex enjoyable physically that it was something that took a backseat to emotional connection.

  It was an interesting twist to find out that Tender’s own daughter were gay, or bisexual at the very least.

  Anyway, her daughter was seriously romantically involved with a woman. A beautiful woman, too.

  Actually, they were both really attractive, Karen realized, albeit in different ways. There was something stoic and strong about Viv. Rugged. And those eyes were otherworldly.

  Penny, conversely, was a paragon of glossy bubble gum femininity. She was also… sparkly. Radiant anyway. Karen found it hard not to smile whenever she looked at Penny.

  And more importantly, Karen felt a sense of peace and calm the moment she met them that she couldn’t remember ever having.

  For as long as Karen could remember, she’d been flooded with the emotions of others. But now, with them in the room, her mind was quiet. Far less crowded.

  All she sensed were her own emotions. For once.

  Penny and Viv didn’t spend long in her room before moving on to tour the rest of the facility. In spite of herself, Karen began to tail them at a safe distance.

  She noted that if she fell too far behind that the emotions of others returned, flooded into her mind.

  It was painful watching Penny and Viv say goodbye to Tenny at the locked exit to the ward. Karen knew what would happen next. That the calm would be gone.

  And she was right. When Penny and Viv left, so did the calm.

  In the days that followed, Karen waited for her roommate’s daughter to visit again. But no luck.

  “Viv’s got a busy life. She’s a detective, and she works a lot,” Tender had explained, visibly taken aback when Karen asked about another visit. After all, the reason Tender liked Karen so much was because she wasn’t much of a talker. She wasn’t used to Karen asking followup questions. Or questions apropos of nothing, as this one seemed to be.

  Karen grumbled. Felt despondent.

  One afternoon sitting outside the nurse’s station, observing their feelings to pass the time, Karen got an idea. She’d wait until the nurses were clearly distracted. Once that happened, she’d have her chance.

  She didn’t have to wait too long. It seemed that there was a love triangle underway between the staff at Nirvana Heights. Or perhaps a quadrangle. Or a hexagon? Karen wasn’t too sure.

  In any event, there were an awful lot of people working at the hospital trying to be monogamous and failing miserably because they were partnered to people who were trying to be slyly non-monogamous and failing miserably by getting caught.

  Which opened a wide window of opportunity for her.

  During an intense standoff in a back staff room between a cheate
r and a jilted lover, Karen crept into the nurses’ station and looked up the information in the visitors’ log.

  Viv Lee and Penny Dreadful, 26 Bell Avenue, Skinner.

  Of course they’d live there, Karen thought. Not just in the Psychic City but in one of the most intuitive-dense neighborhoods.

  An unrelenting rain practically pressure blasted the street the night Karen was discharged from the hospital, but for all she cared it could have been sunny out.

  The entire ten miles that she walked, she was only vaguely aware of how heavy her clothes became. Largely oblivious to how the weight from the water made her body feel as though even gravity had changed and that she very well could have been walking on the surface of an alien planet.

  She was fixated solely on the directions, the mess of turns that would take her to 26 Bell Avenue. She recited them over and over again in her head so she wouldn’t mess them up. The weather didn’t matter. She only cared about navigating, first through the dense city streets, then through the mixed-use downtown, and finally through the haphazardly zoned suburbs that led to the house where Tender Lee’s daughter Viv and her partner Penny lived.

  Karen didn’t have to check the number on the door. She knew precisely when she arrived. And that they were quite close, judging by the immediate wave of calm that hit her stepping onto the doormat, which she noted read GO AWAY in italics rather than your standard WELCOME.

  Drenched to the bone, Karen raised one heavy rain-soaked arm and pounded on the front door.

  Even with a door between them, Karen heard a syncopated polyrhythm, the patter of feet bounding towards her. A few seconds later, the door flung open, revealing Penny, wrapped in a fluffy pink bathrobe, her blonde hair tightly wound in curlers.

  “Oh… Oh!” Penny said.

  Karen shrugged.

  “Oh,” Penny said again.

  The tone was a bit different each time, communicating a different emotion. Karen followed along quite well. In that moment, even as she stood weighed down by dripping clothes, her wet hair shellacked to her face hooded beneath her sweatshirt, with her powers comparably dampened, she felt she could have followed Penny’s meaning indefinitely even if all she said was “oh.”

  “Do they know that you’re gone?” Penny said.

  Karen winced.

  “Oh dear, I… uh… that sounded terrible. I don’t mean to imply that you escaped,” Penny blurted out. “Oh,” she said again. This time the syllable sounded pinched and nervous and even a bit embarrassed.

  “It’s okay,” Karen replied. Because it was. She couldn’t explain how, but she knew already that everything was okay now. And that it would continue to be okay for quite some time.

  “Um. But… Did you?” Penny said, in spite of herself.

  “Did I what?” Karen asked.

  “Did you escape?” Penny said. “Oh. Oh gosh, I’m so rude.”

  Karen cracked a smile. “No, I didn’t escape. I was discharged.”

  “Ah,” Penny said. And this particular syllable had a life of its own, one quite distinct from the spectrum of “ohs.” “Ah” seemed more solid somehow. A release of tension, but one that wasn’t like venting or a hiss of steam but more manifested as a safe fall from a great height would.

  “Ah” was a safety net, there to catch you. The denouement after a spectacular drama. This “ah” anyway.

  “Well come in then,” Penny said, as she was becoming quite uncomfortable watching Karen get rained on. And as Karen was hopefully not an escapee from the mental hospital, provided she were telling the truth.

  Karen plodded wetly into the foyer, careful not to go too far, lest she track mud all over what seemed to be a perfectly nice hardwood floor. Karen stopped where she stood and began to take off her shoes.

  “A nice gesture,” Penny said. “But I’m not sure your shoes will do it.”

  “I know I’m a mess,” Karen said.

  Penny nodded.

  “But I don’t have any other clothes,” Karen said.

  “Wait here,” Penny replied.

  A few seconds later, Penny returned carrying an armful of clothes. They were all pink. A baby pink track suit. Fleece socks with bunnies on them. A fluffy pink towel perched atop of this pile of clothes. It was an awkward position, as it was the largest item Penny carried, but somehow she kept it balanced.

  Impressive, Karen thought.

  “Let’s get you out of these wet things,” Penny said as she handed the outfit to Karen. Then she laughed. “They say that in movies, you know. I’ve always wanted to say it to someone. Never had a chance to.”

  “Thank you,” Karen said. She began to pull off her wet clothes, which seemed practically suctioned onto her skin at this point.

  It dawned on Penny that this strange woman she’d only met once was about to strip down naked in front of her. When you’re in this position, you have a few choices:

  Stand there and watch and enjoy the show. Something you can do openly or perhaps you can attempt to do a bit more slyly, acting blasé about the nudity or pretending to not be looking directly when you are in fact sneaking glimpses.

  Give the person some privacy.

  Insist the person go somewhere where they will have privacy.

  As Penny wasn’t about to have Karen track mud all over the house, that knocked off the request for Karen to relocate. So she realistically was going to watch or go away.

  In all honesty, Penny was quite curious about Karen’s physique. It was a real mystery to her given how Karen dressed, hiding her body under so many layers of clothes. Even completely drenched, nothing even close to resembling a wet T-shirt contest was underway.

  However, as Penny suspected that Viv wouldn’t exactly approve of her gawking over this naked woman, Penny chose to set the stack of clean laundry down where Karen could reach it and go away.

  Viv, Penny thought suddenly. Right.

  Penny knew immediately what she had to do. The longer this stranger were in the house without Viv knowing, the more potential trouble Penny could be in when Viv found out.

  Viv could be rather unpredictable when it came to her responses to bizarre events… and well, to everything. As far as Penny could tell, Viv was inclined to have a rather moody temperament at baseline. Throw in her attacks (or as Penny liked to call them, her “visions,” although this inevitably made Viv sneer when she said it) and her ever-changing medication regimen to control them, you never knew quite which version of Viv you were going to get.

  This could be stressful for Penny sometimes, but it was also frankly what made Viv kind of fun. Dating Viv was like dating a kaleidoscope of multiple different people all blended in a complex matrix that defied total comprehension, each component person with their own needs and concerns.

  In any event, Viv’s inherent unpredictability kept things interesting between them. Fresh.

  As Penny walked up to Viv to announce Karen’s rather damp arrival on their doorstep, she hoped that she’d be met with one of Viv’s more forgiving iterations.

  Viv was sitting in the office, quite engrossed with a book she was reading. Penny cleared her voice so as not to startle her.

  Viv looked up, her eyes flashing through three shades in quick succession. Penny wasn’t sure what that meant but proceeded carefully. “So you know your mother’s roommate at Nirvana Heights?” Penny ventured.

  “Just barely,” Viv replied. “I know that she had one, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Short woman. Dark hair. Wearing a hoodie. Sad, distracted, but nervous energy. Kind of like what would happen if you gave Eeyore a few too many espresso shots in his trough.”

  Viv frowned. “Well, that’s oddly specific.” She became suspicious. “Penny, what’s going on?”

  Penny bit her lip. “What would you say if I told you she was in our house changing into some of my clothes?”


  Viv set down her book and considered Penny’s face carefully. “I would say, “Maybe we should call the cops.’”

  “But we are the cops,” Penny replied.

  “You know what I mean. The normal cops,” Viv said. “The normals. Skinner PD. The guys with the wee-yoo wee-yoo wagon.”

  “Is that what you really want, Viv? A team of cops showing up here, finding a psychic gay couple and deciding to ask us the wrong questions? They’d probably take one look at us and decide to handcuff the blonde one. And then it’d get really nasty. Because they’ve probably watched too many pornos about women’s prisons.”

  “Too many?” Viv asked. “Do you know this from personal experience, how many films that is? What is the recommended serving of women’s prison porn, Miss Penny?”

  Penny sighed. Her cheeks burned. This was all getting to be too much.

  Viv cracked a grin. “Anyway, you’d probably enjoy the handcuffs.”

  Penny wanted to laugh, but there was a certain edge to Viv’s jab that she found a little too sharp. Penny groaned instead, feeling frustration rise from her stomach into her chest.

  “Come with me,” Penny said, leading Viv out to where Karen now stood fully dressed. She changes outfits quickly, Penny mused. Wonder if she’s done any theater. The efficiency reminded her very much of an actor who must briskly switch costumes.

  “Does she look dangerous to you?” Penny said to Viv, as they stood just out of Karen’s earshot.

  “Define dangerous,” Viv replied.

  “Look at her,” Penny said. “She showed up outside in the middle of the night, soaking wet. What was I supposed to do? Besides, she’s so tiny. What’s she going to do? Rough us up?”

  “You never know,” Viv said. “Sometimes it’s the small ones you’ve gotta watch.”

  Penny frowned.

  “Your heart’s just too big sometimes,” Viv said, sighing. “You’re always picking up strays.”