Psychic Junkie

by Sarah Lassez

  This one, a girl who was thirteen going on twenty-five, looked like the type who’d want to work in the entertainment industry. Then again, for all I knew, her dad owned a studio and she already worked in the entertainment industry. I was about to ask her what she wanted to know, when faster than the speed of light Gucci Girl spat her question. I blinked.

  Her chin rose just slightly. “I said, will I ever see my father again.”

  The way she resisted lifting her voice at the end, refusing to turn her words into a question, told me we both knew the answer. In her eyes was the truth: Despite her bravado and polished facade, she was a scared thirteen-year-old girl who missed her father.

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  She didn’t break my gaze. “Five years ago. No one knows where he is.”

  I nodded, desperately wanting to get up—to hand Gordon my cards, scale the nearest ten-foot perimeter wall, and jump back down into a world where I wasn’t responsible for anyone but me. This girl didn’t need a not-so-successful actress in a beehive wig pretending to be a tarot card reader; she needed a therapist. What could I say? “No, you may never ever see your father again, but I do see a bright future for you as a movie producer”? None of this was right. And where was that hot gay bartender when I needed him?

  I had to give her a reading, so I pulled some cards, making damn sure I approved of them before I laid them on the table. There was no way I’d slap down the Death or Disappointment card in a case like this. And though nothing frightening appeared, neither did anything hopeful. I needed to be encouraging, but I didn’t want to doom this girl to years of waiting by the window.

  “To be honest, I don’t know if you’ll be seeing him soon. The cards aren’t telling me that, but what they are telling me is that he wants you to know that he loves you. He thinks about you all the time. You should always remember that, even when he’s not here, that doesn’t mean he’s not thinking about you, or missing you, or wishing he was with you. Always remember that your father loves you. That’s what the cards are saying.”

  Though her chin was still tipped upward, barely, just barely, I did see her nod.

  “Thanks,” she said as she got up. “I like your wig.”

  What happened to only fun and glitter mattering to people this young? I stood up, about to voyage to what I feared was a spicy-tuna-roll-ransacked sushi table, when a couple—in their midforties, impeccably groomed, and exuding the word “rich” down to their no doubt buffed and manicured toes—appeared out of nowhere and announced that they wanted a reading on their marriage.

  I sat back down. I really didn’t want to read adults. Adults cared. That I knew, and I’d been hoping to get through the entire evening without journeying into such dangerous, mine-laden territory.

  “Is there something in particular you’d like to ask?”

  They looked at each other, smiled, and shrugged. Of course not. A question would be too easy, too fast; they wanted an entire reading. They wanted me to be left with just the mounds of ginger, gobs of wasabi, and chopsticks I could do nothing with—other than stab myself over and over in an attempt to end my misery.

  I decided to do a general relationship spread—a spread I’d mastered over the years, though sadly had had no reason to use as of late—just to see what surfaced. What surfaced was the Three of Cups, otherwise known in my deck as the love triangle card. Great. My wig was itchy, I was tired, I was denied sushi, and now this? Adultery? Then again, if it was in the cards, maybe I was meant to tell them? Whatever. I decided I was just going to be honest. I’d say what I saw and let them take it how they would. For a second I pictured the table uprooted, cards flying, man and wife screaming, designer clothes ripping, and children running. The bright side of such an outcome, I figured, would be that I might get fired, escorted out, and be wigless on my couch within the hour.

  Here went nothing. “Are you aware…of a third party?”

  There was silence, and I braced myself for an earsplitting scream or the wet slap of a drink hurled in my face.

  “Yes,” the wife said, her eyes wide. She squeezed her husband’s hand. “It’s okay. I know about the third party. Go on.”

  Oddly, her husband looked excited, and he too nodded me on. I stared at him in silence, affording him a chance to regain his sanity, to try to change the subject so we weren’t all forced to dwell on his infidelity, but he quickly added, “It was during our separation. We just got back together. Sorry, it’s just amazing that you picked up on that. But yes, please go on.”

  So on I went. And the rest, I must say, was actually a breeze, all good fortune with only a few obligatory bumps along the way. By the time I’d finished, they were exhilarated, gazing into each other’s eyes, and commenting on little things I’d said, completely impressed with the reading and their future.

  Two hours and one measly California roll later, I was finally packing up my tarot cards to leave when the husband approached my table. The wife, I noticed, was nowhere to be found.

  “Can I just ask you a quick question?”

  I nodded and smiled as visions of couches and food, any kind of food, danced in my head.

  “I’d like to know,” he said, then looked over his shoulder quickly, “if I did the right thing leaving my girlfriend, or if I made a mistake getting back together with my wife.”

  I was tired, I was hungry, I wanted to go home, and now, on top of all that, I was just done with the entire species of men. I mean, was he kidding me? There he’d been, all lovey-dovey with his wife, holding her hand and gazing at her as if she were the most beautiful woman in the world, and yet now, just two hours later, he was asking me, a perfect stranger, if getting back together with her was a mistake?! I literally wanted to leap across the table and beat him with my wig. I took a deep breath. Why was I this upset? Suddenly I heard the question again, only this time with a German accent. Right. Wilhelm asking Dustin if he’d made a mistake getting back together with me. Men.

  “I don’t even need the cards for this,” I said firmly. “I feel it very strongly. Absolutely, without a doubt, you made the right choice going back to your wife.”

  The next day, as I counted up my twenties, I thought of that man’s question. There he’d stood in expensive Italian shoes, his suit perfect and pressed, a man with a watch that had cost more than I’d made that whole year, a man who no doubt had a very important and respected job, and who was friends with the owners of that estate—that mansion with a view of the world—and yet he’d stood there asking me, a girl often not responsible enough to pay her bills on time even when she did have money, if he’d made the right decision or if his heart had led him astray. Never had I fully understood the control psychics had, the trust people placed in them, or the opportunities to abuse that trust and influence. Sure, I’d been on the other side, I’d been the one asking the questions and believing and imploring, but the understanding of the power really only sank in when I myself had become the maker or breaker of dreams.

  And when he asked if he’d made the right choice in going back to his wife, what was I to say? I’m human. All I’d had to go on were the looks of love I’d caught them sharing, my instinct, and my own personal feelings on the matter. What was psychic about that? Absolutely nothing. Sure, it was strange that the Three of Cups had popped up when there had indeed been a love triangle, and there were a few other times when the cards had been eerily accurate, but for the most part there was nothing psychic or strange about what I’d done. I’d simply spoken whatever had come to mind, just hunches and feelings and the advice I would have given a friend.

  And that’s when it hit me.

  I could do this. I could read cards. I could give advice.

  I could work as a psychic! I’d go undercover at a psychic hotline and wield my tarot powers for good! I understood the power psychics had. Callers would be safe with me, because I’d never abuse that power! Instead I’d tell people to trust their instincts and stop calling!

  Rig
ht away I found a want ad for readers, and within ten minutes was waiting for my “interview” phone call. My interview was, of course, a reading, so my preparation involved sitting on my bed with my tarot cards and staring off into space. I was actually trying to clear my mind, trying to not worry that Angelique, my interviewer, would see right through me and realize I was a sham of a psychic, nothing more than a bored girl in her bedroom trying to save the world one caller at a time. Yet all I could think was, Why have I never painted my apartment? I’d been there for years. Did I not care about these things? At one point the walls had been white, but now they were that strange dusty age-sooted white, some corners and spots mysteriously darker than the rest and adorned with fossilized spiderwebs posing as cracks. I couldn’t for the life of me think of a fitting name to describe the hue of the walls within which I’d been living, as even the diplomatic “off-white” was too kind. No, my walls were simply “not-white.”

  I needed to do something about my apartment. The home that lived in my mind looked so different, a shocking comparison: clean and decorated with plants, fine rugs, painted walls, candles, matching plates, and curtains. I mean, curtains. I had curtains only in my bedroom, and those were purely for function and certainly not for appearance, while the living room was practically a greenhouse, all windows through which neighbors and stalkers could monitor my every move.

  Granted, my future home was a house, not an upper-level living-room-floor-sloping apartment. But when would that future begin? Why force myself to live in an agonizing interim? I would have loved to buy a house, and I would have loved to live with someone, but was I really going to exist like this, just skimming above the surface of functionality until that mysterious time of love and success arrived? What was I waiting for?

  Okay, we know damn well what I was waiting for: a man. With Wilhelm, any amount of investment into my own style would have been futile and wasted, as his tastes overrode mine. But why had I thought that? Why had his sparse, boring, sterile style become more important than my own? Sure, if either of us were going to throw a tizzy fit over interior design, it would’ve been him, but still, I’d rolled over and played dead. I’d been so determined to keep him happy that I’d conveniently forgotten that I had style too—and style that I actually liked. And now, now that I was single, I’d somehow continued to forget about myself as I put my entire life on hold waiting for a man who might never come.

  I thought of Gina joyfully passing up the shoes she’d been coveting when she’d discovered an oak mission-style bookcase that was “the perfect size to fit in that corner that just needs something.” Yes, as a woman obsessed with decorating, she had corners that needed something, while I had an apartment that needed everything. Before she’d met Mark, we’d all accused her of nesting—the if-you-build-it-he-

  will-come theory—and had liked asking her what she’d do if her future man didn’t like her style. She never gave it a second thought. “Then he won’t move in, will he?” And while that attitude could certainly have backfired, in her case it hadn’t. Mark arrived, fell in love with her and her couch, and never left.

  I’d buy curtains, I decided. I’d find the money; I’d make it happen. I was debating over color—sage green would be soothing, white would be versatile—when the phone rang. Oh, right. I’m a psychic.

  I shuffled the cards and concentrated. Angelique wanted to know about work, not love, as apparently she wasn’t happy at her job. That right there blew my mind. Her job was testing psychics and getting free readings all day long. Um, hello? How can I get your job? Immediately I decided that she was unappreciative and undeserving—though it did occur to me that testing psychics most likely involved getting readings from bad psychics, and I knew that even if a psychic was proven inaccurate, it was very difficult to forget their words. Poor Angelique. Within her brain must have been swarms and swarms of conflicting readings, all driving her batty. Then again, I had those swarms too, and yet I’d paid for mine. Yeah, no more feeling bad for Angelique.

  I tried not to worry about what I was saying. I simply told the story of the cards and whatever else popped into my mind. I talked and talked, and when finally I was done, there was silence. I waited, nervously. For all I knew she’d set the phone on her kitchen counter ages ago, and was off doing laundry or polishing silver. Had I just wasted thirty minutes of my life?

  “Wow,” she finally said, her voice a bit wobbly. “That was amazing. You were right on. I definitely want you on board. Can you start today?”

  Thirty minutes later my e-mail in-box was flooded with forms, and I was horrified at how easy it had been to get a job as a psychic. Granted, there’s no Psychic University from which to graduate, or psychic internships to be had, but getting this job had been as easy as when I’d gotten my first job at Baskin-Robbins. No experience? Great, we’ll take you.

  At any rate, I printed what they sent me, including a confidentiality agreement (hence I will be referring to said nameless psychic hotline as “Said Nameless Psychic Hotline”) and pages and pages and pages of a code of conduct. I’d stumbled upon a self-proclaimed “moral” psychic hotline. Endlessly they rambled on with their claim that the goal was not to keep the caller on the line longer than necessary, yet then, hidden as a footnote, was the information that our average call length determined our pay schedule. Huh. I assumed it worked like this for most hotlines, and flashed back to the many times I’d called psychics only to encounter an inordinate amount of shuffling or excessively long prayers to guides and the universe. The bastards.

  I was no longer Sarah; I was Mirabel. Yep, I thought as I leaned back on my bed and flipped through a J.Crew catalog, I’m Mirabel. Mirabel the Psychic. That’s me. Now, for my first prediction as Mirabel: An actress, who still hasn’t gotten paid a dime for the movie she’s filming in a month, will spend an unreasonable amount of money on a pink cashmere sweater with sparkly rhinestone buttons, and will then tack on a pair of chocolate-brown high leather—

  The phone rang.

  I sat up. Shit. People really believed I was a psychic? I took a deep breath and plastered a perma-grin on my face. Not that anyone could see me, but I wanted them to hear me smiling, and perma-grins somehow come with sound effects.

  “Hi! And welcome to Said Nameless Psychic Hotline! My name is Mirabel. Who’s this and what’s on your mind today?”

  “Hi, this is Tisha. I want to ask about John. How’s he feeling about me?”

  Without wasting time (money), I pulled the cards, my fingers flying. “I see that he’s very attracted to you, but he’s struggling with something. He’s feeling a lot of anxiety, like he’s torn in two. Does that make sense?”

  “Uh-huh,” Tisha said, sounding bored. “He’s married. So, will he leave his wife?”

  More than anything I longed to scream, “No! And damn you for even hoping for that, you evil husband stealer!” But alas, I’d been instructed not to judge the callers. Tisha, I’m sure, wanted to hear “Yes, he’ll leave her and you’ll be together, and now let’s do a reading on your big bright future with him.” Truthfully, that’s what most psychics would say because that’s what would keep her on the phone. Then, convinced John would leave his wife, she’d wait for that to happen. Then she’d wait some more, and call another psychic, wait, and call many more psychics.

  Tisha’s emotional well-being was in my hands. Essentially, I was responsible for the next few years of her life.

  “Well, Tisha, to be honest with you I don’t know if he’ll leave his wife. But maybe it’s time to ask what your instincts are telling you. And maybe it’s also time to ask yourself if you deserve to be with a man who’s available. Don’t you deserve that?”

  And in response to this, in response to my attempt to spare her pain, to divert her from a psychic noose and to lead her down a much healthier, rewarding path, the little hussy hung up on me. Fine, don’t face reality. Whatever.

  The phone rang again, and then again, and then again. Angelique had warned me this would ha
ppen, that everyone rushes to test out the new psychic. Whereas other readers might capitalize on this, I used the opportunity to spread my trust-your-own-

  instincts mantra, a mantra, I might mention, that wasn’t so well received.

  Soon my brain was fried and I was mentally and emotionally exhausted. I felt as if I’d taken on the weight of all the callers’ problems, and I literally ached from the strain.

  The phone rang again.

  “Hi. And welcome to Said Nameless Psychic Hotline. My name is Mirabel. Who’s this and what’s on your mind today.”

  “Uh, yeah, this is Gina, and I’m wondering what Mirabel did to my friend Sarah?”

  “You’re tying up my line. I’m a psychic.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Yes, I am. I’m Mirabel the Psychic and for the last two hours people have been telling me their problems and then hanging up on me.”

  “What an awesome job.”

  “I have to do it. I’m on a covert mission.”

  “Ah. Mirabel the Undercover Psychic?”

  “Yes, but no one wants to hear that they should stop calling and just listen to themselves. I’m making no progress and am totally exhausted from trying to be nonjudgmental, sympathetic, and rational, and at the same time save these people from themselves.”

  “So this means you don’t want to go bowling tonight?”

  “What is it with you and bowling?”

  “What is it with you and your unacceptance of bowling?”

  “I gotta go. I’m taking one more call and then a three-hour bath.”

  I hung up and stared at the phone. One more, just one more. In fact, I thought, I’ll start running the bathwater now, and then, with my pathetic water pressure, the tub might be full in forty-five minutes.