Psychic Junkie

by Sarah Lassez

  There, standing at the hostess station just twenty feet away, was the glaring, reflective, shining widow’s peak I knew all too well.

  My fight-or-flight instinct kicked in and told me to run. Run! Fly back down the stairs and into Matthew’s car and race far, far away from the man who broke your heart. And I think I might have done just that, except that I caught sight of Wilhelm leaning in and just slightly, just barely, brushing the hostess’s hand with his own. They were laughing. He was smiling. And this, I must say, completely altered my instinct. Now I was all fight.

  “Pretend you’re my boyfriend,” I whispered to Matthew.

  “Sure, honey.”

  Without skipping a beat he was in character and holding my hand.

  Approaching. Approaching. Getting closer. Almost there. Four feet away I transformed my face into that of shock. I stopped walking, as if I’d just spotted him.

  “Wilhelm? Oh my God.” I watched as he turned, his eyes widening as he saw me, and then narrowing upon spotting my delicious and successful arm candy.

  “Sarah,” he said evenly. “Hi. It’s good to see you.”

  Matthew, not one to take any role lightly, had chosen to play the possessive type and now had his arm around me, holding me so close I felt the hard form of his cell phone in his pocket. And yes, I do mean his cell phone.

  I tried to look nonchalant. “Nice to see you too. What are you doing here?”

  Meanwhile, the hostess, either sensing the skirmish or shamelessly wanting Matthew for herself, came out from behind the station to reveal her ridiculously long legs and equally ridiculous short skirt. She pretended to scan the dining room for something, and I momentarily concentrated my energies on making the gigantic wrought-iron chandelier above her fall.

  “I work here,” Wilhelm said.

  “Really? I thought for sure you’d be in Bangkok or Johannesburg by now. What happened to your journey?”

  “Yes, well,” Wilhelm mumbled. “Timing, you know.”

  Matthew, deserving an Oscar for his performance as Sarah’s Devoted Boyfriend Who Doesn’t Even Look at Sluts with Short Skirts, then took off my coat and tossed it to Wilhelm. “Check this for my girl, will you? Thanks, man.”

  Before Wilhelm could shriek “I’m not the coat check! I’m the sous-chef! The sous-chef!” Matthew was already leading me away and leaning in to whisper—and kiss my ear at the same time—“Who was that clown?”

  Across the room I spotted Holly, sitting at a table with white pillar candles and a single delicate white orchid, an empty seat by her side. I smiled.

  “Oh, no one,” I said, my skin shivering beneath Matthew’s breath. “Just a bizarre metrosexual German sous-chef I once dated.”

  A week later I was still basking in the glory of the music-industry shindig. The scene was one I’d replayed so many times in my mind that I’d started handing out stage directions to all the minor players: “You there, move to the left when you see us approach. No! Your other left! Camera left! And you in the Armani suit, mouth open in shock, please.”

  Though I hadn’t seen Wilhelm again that evening (and wasn’t quite sure why he’d been there in the first place, since he hadn’t been dressed as a chef), the evening had just gotten better and better. Not only had I proven to myself that I was truly over the man whose existence was wrapped up in my psychic and psychological downfall, but I’d kissed a man whose laser eyes made my heart snag—and come to the very important decision that my future car was fine with black interior. Hee-hee.

  Despite feeling so healthy and happy, habit made my fingers itch to call psychics just for fun, just to see what Wilhelm thought of me, if he was devastated and sad and replaying the scene in his mind as well. And there’s my beautiful ex-girlfriend with a movie star. Oh why, oh why didn’t I ask her to marry me? Why did I continually lead her on? She could have been mine. I am a fool.

  I decided to do absolutely nothing for my last Saturday before filming. The whole day I’d do nothing, just relax and maybe take a long bath with the phone on the floor beside me in case Matthew called. Not that I really wanted to get involved with him—well, I did, but only in some alternate universe where the other me had an enormous pain threshold, no expectations beyond the present hour, and absolutely no feelings or emotions, or human qualities at all, for that matter. The fact was he was an actor, and not only was he an actor but he was a famous actor, a detail I knew would lead to endless paranoia and suspicion on my part. Girls literally threw themselves at him. Could I handle that? No. Not at all. In fact, should we get involved, I knew precisely when such fear and paranoia would begin, since he’d told me that in just two weeks he would be off to Australia to film his next movie and would be gone for five months. For all intents and purposes, I could go ahead and circle the date of his departure on my calendar, scrawl in “Sarah’s mental decline begins,” and be right on.

  Oh, and as if all this weren’t warning enough, I’d also recently seen a movie in which he’d played a serial killer. I’d watched him hack a poor trusting young woman into pieces. If I didn’t view that as prophetic, I was high.

  Still, I had the phone within reach in case he called. I figured if I heard from him then perhaps I’d be slightly justified in calling a psychic just for fun, just to ask their take on what could happen with us, if I’d definitely have Aussie-accented nightmares. Unfortunately, when the phone did ring, trilling the ringtone I’d downloaded—“Que sera, sera! Whatever will be, will be! The future’s not ours to see! Que sera, sera!”—my new motto in life and my constant antipsychic reminder, it wasn’t Matthew at all, but Gina, who within seconds destroyed all my plans of nothingness.

  She needed to find a wedding dress. With the wedding only a year and two months away, she was beginning to panic and had gone into freaky Virgo mode, a mode that involved spreadsheets, printed lists of tasks, and cutout magazine pages of dresses and flowers and cakes that she laminated and ordered by subject in a black leather binder. Luckily, one of the dresses she liked was at a boutique in Santa Monica.

  “But here’s the thing,” she said. “We can’t just go there. These boutiques are snotty. The girls who work there are hate-filled elitist little snobs who won’t give us the time of day if we don’t look like we deserve it. Seriously, if we go in dressed like we normally are on a Saturday afternoon, they’ll take one look at us and assume I have no money. Then they’ll hide the good dresses, and only bring out the cheap ugly ones.”

  “Can you afford the good dresses?”

  “God, no. I’m totally broke. But I still want to try them on, so I can start saving with a goal, you know? I mean, Sarah, this dress is gorgeous. I’ve been dreaming about it; it’s part of the whole vision now. But they won’t even look in my direction if they think I’m not buying. So, the plan is to get all glammed up, go there, park a block away so they don’t see my car, and then strut around their pathetic little store like we’re just killing time before we meet with the actual designers themselves. Okay?”

  There went my bath. There went my Saturday. But then again, there also went the distinct possibility that I’d spend the entire day staring at my cell phone, hoping it would ring as much as I hoped it wouldn’t. Wanting Matthew was like wanting a hypodermic of sugar water injected straight into a vein—sure, something sweet is always nice, but the whole thing is just really wrong.

  “Sarah, you with me? We have only two hours to get ready. Do your nails if they’re not done, deep condition your hair, whatever. Then find an outfit that says chic sophistication, like you’re old New York money.”

  The result of such a request was both of us dressed head to toe in black.

  “Ah, man,” Gina said as I got into her car. “We look like we’re coming from a funeral.”

  “A chic, sophisticated New York funeral,” I corrected.

  Once at the store, surrounded by taunting dresses and snide tiaras that screamed to me, “Try me on! Try me on! Oh, wait, you have no reason. Keep walking there, single girl,�
� I witnessed our rapid collapse. Though we entered with confidence and carefully masked excitement, it was only a matter of time before Gina was thoroughly appalled at all of the ridiculously expensive dresses, and I was fuming from being referred to as “Gina’s Friend” by a bitchy little salesgirl who’d never bothered to ask my name. Throttling the snobby pixie and screaming, “Just because I’m single and not getting married anytime soon doesn’t mean I don’t get a name! I have a name! I’ve actually had a name for years now, and it’s not Gina’s Friend!” was an enticing option.

  Thankfully I was spared my tirade, as at last Gina emerged from behind the curtain dressed in something that looked as though it belonged on a pimped-out ballerina. She stood before the mirror, her eyes wide and unblinking. I was about to point out that the bowling-ball-size flowers that bloomed on the poofy tulle skirt could most likely be removed, or maybe just trimmed, and actually weren’t even that noticeable as the eye went straight to the flashy bodice with sequins shaped into some sort of a heraldic coat of arms, when she turned to me.

  “It didn’t look like this in the magazine.”

  “No,” I said. “I imagine it didn’t.”

  “Oh, Gina’s Friend?” said the snobby salesgirl, Bethany (see, I learned her name). “Is that yours?” Her wrist dangled in the direction of my purse. “I’ll just move it to Gina’s dressing room so people don’t trip.”

  I clamped my mouth shut to squelch a string of words I suspected would be highly unsuitable for brides and their mothers, then quickly turned to Gina and smiled a big, fake, happy grin.

  Gina, equally as horrified, was glaring at the salesgirl. When she saw me, she shook her head apologetically, and then turned back to face the mirror. Suddenly her eyes narrowed. “Are those feathers?”

  “You’re just now seeing them?”

  She looked at me, her eyes now very wide. “Sarah, listen to me. It has to come off, and we have to leave. Now.”

  Back in the safety of her Jetta we sat in silence, each dwelling in our own special nightmare.

  After a while, she spoke. “I’m sorry about that.”

  “No,” I said. “I’m sorry about that.”

  She nodded and started the car.

  We decided to take the freeway home, as it was a Saturday and thus might involve use of the gas pedal rather than simple coasting. A couple turns later and we were almost to the freeway entrance, when we saw the ocean, vast and blue and glimmering in the late afternoon light. I don’t know why, but it always sort of takes me by surprise that it’s there. I guess it’s the out-of-sight, out-of-mind thing, but because I rarely see the ocean, it always kind of creeps up on me, this gigantic body of water that pops out from behind trees and buildings, suddenly looming on the horizon like, “Hey, look at me, I’m the ocean.”

  “Want to go to the beach?” Gina asked, an apparently rhetorical question since she was already ignoring the freeway and making a right to head up the coast. “Past Malibu there’s this spot with great tide pools. I haven’t been there since high school when we got that grant.”

  I’d heard the tales, Gina and her friends’ attempt at padding their college applications by taking part in a grant for the National Science Foundation, something that involved studying the migration of monarch butterflies and was an entirely misguided venture for girls who’d cared nothing about science. “We stuck thermometers up butterflies’ butts,” she’d once told me, “and then, when none of the scientists were looking, we tried to escape.” Still, when lunchtime rolled around on those tedious Saturdays, the whole herd of social misfits—along with Gina and her friends—had crossed the highway and gone tide-pooling. And thus was born Gina’s fascination with anemones and sea slugs.

  Eventually we pulled to the side of the road, across from the state park where long ago the butterflies had been caught and tagged and released back into their monitored world. Gina paused as she got out of the car and stared cryptically at the eucalyptuses. “Fear not Danaus plexippus,” she said, “for I am not here for you.” Then she turned back toward the water. “Alrighty. Let’s go find ourselves some sea creatures.”

  What we soon discovered was that getting to the sand involved descending a staircase most likely built by California’s first settlers, a staircase with wood handrails so ragged and decrepit that even thinking about touching them could lead to splinters imbedding in your skin. Arms stiff at our sides, we made our way toward the sand, pausing midway to tell ourselves we could do this, only twelve more horribly slanted and frail stairs to go.

  At the bottom we rejoiced—until we took our first step. Our heels sunk deeply into the sand. We struggled to release ourselves, then took another step. Again, there was a struggle to reclaim our feet. This time we stood, wobbling on one leg at a time, and pried off our high-heeled strappy sandals. Then, shoes in hand, we started the long trudge to the water.

  It wasn’t till we were halfway there that we noticed the surfers. There were at least a dozen of them, on the beach and in the water, and they were staring. Most likely they’d been staring the entire time, confused and watching us—two girls completely decked out in full makeup and head to toe black, carrying high heels in their hands, their purses swinging on their shoulders as they stumbled, as if possessed, to the water. I admit, we didn’t exactly look like we belonged. I studied the surfers and then Gina, who gave a little wave, her vintage rhinestone bracelet catching the light, and in my mind the little Sesame Street ditty “One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just isn’t the same!” began to chorus.

  We charged forth, attempting to both hold our heads high with confidence and watch the sand for chunks of tar and putrid seaweed laced with things we knew instinctively were best left undiscovered. When at last we reached the water, Gina looked confused. She studied the coastline. “Ah, man. This is the spot, but the tide’s not low. All this water’s supposed to be rocks.”

  Our work would not be for nothing. Determined, we made our way to the nearest rock formation that jutted out into the ocean, and started to climb. Again, we were presented with an activity that proved more difficult than originally anticipated. The jagged and rough rocks were not so friendly to bare, sand-softened, and recently pedicured feet. As I pulled myself up to a higher spot, trying not to drop my shoes and to keep my purse from falling off my shoulder, I immediately scraped the inside of my hand. There on my palm was a little surge of blood smack through my love line. Fabulous, I thought, I just took out my next boyfriend.

  Though I was a mess, I was doing better than Gina, who was swearing under her breath and claiming a shell was now stuck in her foot. Then, ten seconds later, she was squealing with delight and pointing at a little pool of water caught in the rocks. Nothing about us made sense, and I pictured the surfers below, their fun on pause as they continued to observe the two girls who looked as though they’d just left a chic New York funeral to scale a cluster of rocks as though it were Mount Everest, then curse and hobble in pain and stop and squeal and joyfully point at sea snails.

  But it was worth it. When we finally made it to the farthest point of the formation, we found the perfect rock to sit on, one softened and rounded by years of water and force, a little bench curved and crafted by time’s smoothing hand. Directly below us waves crashed, sending up soft sprays of water, as if we were perched on a giant salty Evian mister—but in a nice way. Gulls dove through the air, white wings sweeping the sky. The ocean, glimmering and tranquil, stretched out into something I could only think of as forever.

  Gina inspected her left foot, the one pained by what appeared to be a rather invisible shell. “So, what’s the latest with Laser Beams?”

  “Hasn’t called. Which is just as well. It would’ve been good for my ego, but that’s about it. I don’t need to get involved with someone who’ll be gone for five months.”

  “An actor who will be gone for five months. Double whammy.”

  “He’s just so cute. Did you see him in that last movie? Ther
e was a scene where they showed his butt. Let me just say, he has an amazing butt.”

  “Could’ve been a butt double.”

  “No, you can tell he’s got a good butt. No double needed. But you know what got me that night? It was feeling wanted. You know? There was someone who cared that I was there, who looked for me when I stepped away.”

  “Someone else will want you too. The right person. Someone who’s not a trained liar and who won’t be in another country for five months.”

  This, the issue of the right person or the one, was something I’d been grappling with lately. After a lifetime of wrong people, I was no longer holding my breath that the right one was around the corner. I was no longer convinced the one even existed. Maybe I had many ones. Maybe they’d come and gone and would continue to come and go. Maybe those words—“the one”—had essentially led me on for years, teasing me, taunting me, forcing me to compare real people with those imagined.

  “You know, I’m not sure I believe in the one anymore. I mean, is there a match for everyone? Maybe there isn’t. Plenty of people end up alone. I could be one of them.”

  Gina shook her head. “No, you’ll meet someone. This town just makes it a bit tougher, that’s all.”

  “I might not, though. It’s possible I won’t, and I can’t keep relying on and living for some future fantasy person. I need to be happy now. I need to buy curtains.”

  “Ooh, I’ll help you buy curtains.”

  “Okay. Tomorrow maybe.”

  Gina smiled. “Yay, curtains. And see, then the next day you start filming. You’re the star of a movie. Your career is going great. It’s all about to happen; it’s exciting.”

  “I know. I’m the happiest career-wise I’ve ever been.”

  “Seriously, then, don’t mess it up with an actor.”