Psychic Junkie

by Sarah Lassez

  Just to be certain of this swing for the better, I demanded a reading. I heard the shuffling begin, such a wonderful, comforting sound, and curled up against the pillows on my bed.

  “In five days,” she said, “you’re going to lose something.”

  I sat up.

  “You’ll lose something or have to sacrifice something on the material level. You’ll be upset about it.”

  “What? Where’d my swing for the better go?”

  “I’m still sensing that, but this does appear to come first. Sorry.”

  And that was that.

  Five days after the reading I was running late for an audition for a guest spot on a lame-ass show, a job I hoped I’d get as much as I hoped I wouldn’t, and couldn’t find my keys anywhere. For about ten minutes I’d been kicking mounds of clothing around on the floor, shoving things off my bed, and generally redistributing the mess to try to unearth the keys, an activity that obviously got in the way of China’s people-watching at the window, because she turned and glared at me in a way I didn’t know was possible for a cat.

  At last the keys came out of what I can only imagine was invisible mode, appearing in plain sight on the table by the door, and I was outta there, hurling myself down the stairs and flinging open the door to my building. I’d taken two steps on the sidewalk when I spotted a cat that looked strangely like China hightailing it up to my building, its belly swinging. What the hell? I looked up to my window on the second story, where I knew China would be. What I saw was an open window with no screen. The screen, I noticed, was now decorating the sidewalk. Amazingly, China was fine, something that made sense when, back in my apartment, I noticed the awning below the window, completely covered in dust but for a big skid mark from a certain feline’s mammoth ass.

  Screen secured, I ran to my car, distractedly rehearsing my lame lines in my head. I reached out, about to open my door, but stopped. My car, which had been parked in that exact spot the night before, had turned into an oil stain. Other than a few pieces of broken glass, that was all that was there. The spot was empty. I lowered my arm. Was I mistaken? I looked up and down the street for my little white Honda Civic. Wait. Broken glass. Crap.

  Whereas I was under the impression that my car being stolen was a monumental event, the police seemed to be under the impression that this type of thing happened every day. Robotically they jotted down notes, annoyingly insisting they needed “Just the facts, please” and none of my theories, and then suddenly they got another call about something somewhere else and were gone. Though I was slightly and secretly relieved at not being able to get to the audition I’d been dreading, the whole day’s experience had left me feeling rather unsatisfied. Thus I was forced to call everyone I knew to recount the saga of the crime, inserting the appropriate and corresponding emotions, and felt better once I’d been afforded some sympathy. After all, this was Los Angeles, and my being without a car was no joking matter.

  When it came time to call Aurelia, it hit me. She’d been right. I’d lost something material five days after the reading, exactly as she’d predicted. Forgetting all about my car, I quickly asked her about my future husband, hoping she’d still be on a psychic roll.

  Immediately she got the Knight of Swords, a card that represents a man less than thirty-five years of age, with dark hair and dark eyes. Since Aurelia was not just a card reader but also a full-fledged clairvoyant, she supplemented her readings with her visions—and, indeed, the man she was seeing had dark hair, was of average height…and, she said warily, he might be an actor. Flashbacks to Gina’s drunken prediction over a year ago streaked through my mind. Could it be the same man? Was That Dickhead Actor not who she’d seen after all? Were they both talking about the same amazing not-too-tall actor who would one day propose and give me two beautiful children with whom we could take disgustingly cute Christmas card pictures? Okay, the Christmas card pictures had never been in any of the predictions, but still, I wanted them.

  But thoughts of any future holiday pictures or portraits were crushed beneath the weight of Aurelia’s next words.

  “He’s someone you’ve already met. He’s already entered your life.”

  “What? If he’s the love of my life, why wouldn’t I have grabbed him then and there? What’s wrong with him?”

  “It wasn’t the right time then.”

  “Okay, fine, how did I feel about him when I did meet him?”

  “You were intrigued. Is that the right word? Yes, intrigued.”

  “By what? Intrigued by what?”

  “That’s all I’m allowed to say right now.”

  I hated it when she pulled that, because there was just no room for arguing. It was like a parent telling a child “Because I said so,” and each time I wanted to stick out my chin and sulk. But Aurelia stuck to her guns, as she’d long ago learned that if she didn’t cut me off at the pass, I’d ask the same question in twenty different ways, stealthily trying to stumble upon another tidbit of information.

  That night I worried about my future husband. There must have been a reason I’d met him and never considered him, so I figured he must not have been very good-looking. Obviously, when I do go out with him later, I’ll be settling and desperate, willing to date anyone. And “intrigued”? What does that mean? Was he shrouded in mystery? What, was he wearing a cape?

  As I drifted to sleep, I told myself to dream of him—I will dream of my future husband, I will dream of my future husband—but the only dream I remembered was about Batman, who, contrary to his stellar reputation, had taken me hostage. There I was, being held by the caped crusader, forced to sit at the edge of a skyscraper so tall that fear was what finally woke me.

  A few weeks later Gina knocked on my door. It was a Friday night and, strangely, neither of us had anything to do.

  “I had a vision of your future husband,” she said the second I let her in. “I got really pissed off the other night that I had no career and no man and no space for this mission-style bedroom set I totally want—not that I could afford it even if I did have space, but whatever—and I may have polished off a bottle and a half of wine by myself. You know that horrible feeling when you wake up the next morning and you see an empty bottle on the coffee table and you’re like ‘Oh, good, it was just that one.’ But then you go to throw it away, and lo and behold, in the trash can is—”

  “Are you going to tell me what the vision was?”

  “You’re not gonna like it.”

  “Just tell me. The fact that I have a future man has already made me pretty damn happy.”

  “Yeah, but this guy…he’s on a show.”

  “An actor?”

  “Yes.”

  “I can accept that. I will have to accept that.”

  “You haven’t heard which show.” She smiled, started unwrapping the aluminum around the cork of the wine she’d brought, and strolled into the kitchen.

  I chased after her—which, in my tiny single, meant I took three very quick steps. “Which show? Which one?”

  She told me, and my heart stopped. My future man, it turned out, was on a phenomenally popular yet particularly cheesy TV show. We’re talking the kind of show that encourages friends to gather together with tubs of popcorn and boxes of pizza so they can view the supposed drama and have a hearty laugh. I’ve seen people jokingly reenact the scenes for fun, and act better than the actors themselves.

  I was devastated, and it got worse when she told me which actor it was.

  “Charles Darnette.”

  “No. No. He looks like a frog.”

  “What? You’re insane.”

  I was pacing. I couldn’t stop. I pivoted furiously, almost spilling my wine. “He looks like a frog! With those froggy lips? And froggy eyes? Frog.”

  “You’re crazy. I think he’s cute. I’d totally go out with him. Women love him; he’s an established heartthrob. I thought this would make you happy.”

  “Happy to be married to a frog? Wait, how did you know he was my husban
d? How exactly did you know that?”

  “Because you were standing together—”

  “Standing together! People stand!”

  “Because,” Gina tried again, “you were standing together at the altar.”

  I sat on the bed. Hmm. “And it was definitely us getting married? I wasn’t maybe a bridesmaid?”

  “Nope. Sorry. Big white dress.” She lit her cigarette and exhaled dreamily, as if she’d just come off a twelve-hour flight with no nicotine, a look I knew meant yet another attempt she’d made at quitting had just now failed. “You guys looked really happy together, though. And isn’t it the frog who becomes the prince?”

  “Don’t pull that fairy tale—” I stopped. He was an actor. Average height. With dark hair and dark eyes…and I’d met him before. “No. No. No!”

  Gina stared at me, one eyebrow raised as she brought the cigarette again to her lips, apparently too happy to inquire what I was no-ing about.

  “I’ve met him before. Aurelia? Her prediction? Actor with dark eyes and dark hair? Average height? That’s him! I met him a few years back with my manager in an elevator. He got in and she introduced us and it was real quick. You know, hello, how are you, nice to meet you. Aurelia said I was intrigued when I met him, and I was! Because he was famous! And I remember thinking, ‘Why is he famous? He looks like a frog.’”

  I was completely unnerved. Even Gina admitted it was strange and that, yes, it did indeed sound like he’d be my husband. Heartthrob or not, I found him to be disgustingly unattractive and a horrifyingly bad actor, one I didn’t even want to watch, much less marry. I mean, this was the man I was supposed to have children with? He’d pollute my gene pool with his frogginess!

  From that point on it was as if Cupid were both sadistic and on speed. Charles was planted everywhere. I’d innocently turn on the TV, only to find his froggy face grinning from the screen; or as an irresponsible treat I’d get my nails done, only to be handed a tabloid with Charles’s froggy mug on the cover. I couldn’t escape. Even getting a bagel proved dangerous, since the second I placed my order, the girl behind the counter mentioned him to her coworker.

  Finally, after months of this, I gave in. I was resigned. I was going to marry Charles Darnette, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

  As he was my future husband, I figured I might as well find something about him I liked. I learned he spoke French, which was good. I grew up in a French-speaking household and have always wanted to pass the language along to my children. So okay, he got one point for that. But there had to be more. His disembodied French-speaking voice would be fine, but the way the world is set up requires him to be present as well, which means I’d have to look at him now and then. I began to watch his show carefully. Religiously I observed him from every angle, trying to find one from which our morning breakfasts together wouldn’t make me weep.

  After a while he began to grow on me. He really wasn’t that bad-looking, I guessed. Most women did love him. And though I never wanted to marry an actor, I knew Charles Darnette was such a bad actor that it was only a matter of time before people suddenly realized what had been happening and stopped hiring him. Who knew, he could still become a lawyer. A nice frog-looking French-speaking lawyer.

  I’m embarrassed to admit it, but a year passed and I was still convinced I was doomed to be Mrs. Sarah Darnette. I knew I would be. Gina had seen it, Aurelia had seen it back when she was on the you’ll-lose-something-material roll, and the world seemed determined to shove us together. Seriously, for him to keep appearing as he did defied all odds. It was fate, and I told myself I’d learn to love him. All would be fine. In my mind I saw the Christmas cards: me and our two beautiful children prominently situated in red and green velvet, perhaps by a white marble fireplace, while Charles stood in the corner, slightly shadowed, the picture taken from his least froggy angle.

  Christmas, without Charles, came and went with a few Santa sightings on street corners, a wreath on my neighbor’s door, and one boring holiday party where a drunken meathead of a man tried to ambush me every time I passed through a door frame, actually once losing his balance as he tilted his head back to point out the mistletoe. Yes, nothing says “Kiss me” like a whiskey-scented man falling backward.

  A few trees lost their leaves, and people’s light cotton T-shirts now had long sleeves, but that was the only change in Los Angeles. As usual I missed my days back in New York. Not only did I long for the snow and the true change of seasons, but I also missed the accessories that came with actual dips in temperature. You just can’t get away with scarves or hats in Southern California’s low of 50 degrees. Instead of looking chic or sophisticated, you look wimpy or, worse, like you’re trying—and much of L.A. is about perfecting the look of groomed and trained neglect.

  But this you can count on: Once a year Los Angelenos abandon ship and, to what I imagine is the chagrin of a pretty much idyllic town, take up residence in Park City, Utah. It never fails. When Sundance rolls around, every tanned producer for miles, and every actor, from starving to star, braces himself or herself for the cold, and then, en masse, they invade.

  When I got the call that a movie I’d done was going to Sundance, and hence I’d be part of the invasion, I went straight to my closet (accidentally stepping on Onyx) and shook off the dust from my leopard-print coat, otherwise known as my Sundance coat. Within the hour I was packed and ready to go, one entire carry-on designated for accessories.

  In general, film festivals are the shining, gleaming moments of an independent film actor’s life, and I pretty much lived for them. Since most of my films never actually made it to theaters, festivals gave me a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see myself on the big screen, to listen to an audience react, and then—hopefully—to be accosted by congratulatory praise afterward. “Thank you,” I’d say later in the lobby, “that’s so kind; I appreciate it. I know. I’m really not dead. See? Yep. Here I am. Wasn’t murdered after all.”

  Amazingly, the director of my film had arranged for the entire ensemble cast—all beautiful people almost too hip for their own good—to stay in a condo he’d rented. It was beyond picturesque and perfect. There was snow; there was a fireplace. I searched for a bearskin rug but thankfully didn’t find one, as everyone knows what those make you want to do.

  During this time I got to know Jonas, the lead in the film. Jonas, the product of a French-Vietnamese mother and an Irish-with-a-touch-of-American-Indian father, had an interesting and exotic masculine beauty, with longish brown hair, and cocoa brown eyes. He was completely indefinable, something I related to. Because although I’m entirely French, I was born in Canada (though, to make things a touch more complicated, I am not French Canadian), spent my childhood in Australia, my adolescence in New York, and my adulthood in Los Angeles, and I have somehow always felt I come from nowhere and everywhere all at once. How I felt was essentially how Jonas looked. “Where are you from?” people would ask him, in response to which he’d smile and say “Here.”

  After much glamorous partying in the snow—highlighted by my dancing the “Stand” dance with Michael Stipe—I returned home to the dark pavement and crisp hillsides of Los Angeles. Jonas, it turned out, lived just half a block away from me. Since Los Angeles’s traffic can turn just about anyone into a seething blabbering monster, the fact that we were neighbors was like an endorsement straight from heaven. “Look,” God was shouting through his celestial bullhorn, “I put him within walking distance! Befriend him, you lazy girl!”

  So friends we became. Everything was perfect, until the thought twisted through my paranoid little mind that he might be interested in something more than a friendship. In a tizzy, I called Aurelia. “No,” she assured me, “he sees you as just a friend. Don’t worry about it.” So, with the guarantee of my trusty psychic, I didn’t think about it again…until, that is, Jonas threw me for a curve by blurting out, “Will you be my valentine?”

  This actually did make sense, because the next day
was Valentine’s Day, yet I was still confused. I stared at him. “You mean like a real valentine valentine?”

  “Yes,” he said. “A valentine valentine.”

  I didn’t know what to say. This hadn’t been in the cards. Jonas had completely abandoned the universe’s script and was improvising. Confused, I stumbled out “Yeah, okay,” and went home to fret. Just go with it, I told myself. Jonas was actually a really good-looking guy, but I valued him to the point that my only concern was keeping the seal on our friendship. You break that seal, things can go bad in a hurry.

  Poor Jonas. If he’d harbored any expectations of a romantic Valentine’s Day, he’d been sorely mistaken.

  During the last years of college, and the couple of years right after, Gina lived with her father, an artist with a great house in a hip community called Silver Lake, not far from where I lived. Though she adored him, and he was actually friends with just about all her friends and threw parties people talked about for years, she realized it was perhaps time to leave, to stumble from the nest and find a place of her own. And though I’m sure much of her decision had to do with independence and growth, I also suspected much had to do with her insane urge to decorate, an urge that had been rather stifled, since she’d been confined to a ten-by-ten-foot bedroom.

  The answer was for us to find a new place and be roommates. After all, two cats (three if you went by mass alone, since China should surely count as more than one) had turned my studio apartment from charming to suffocating, and the idea of actual living room furniture had an irresistible appeal. Almost immediately we stumbled upon a great two-bedroom apartment not far from her father’s house, an older building with a fantastic view of the city and a rather drastically sloping living room floor. Since we’d figured we’d be dateless, we’d thus opted to move on the devil’s holiday, aka Valentine’s Day.