by Rhian Ellis
“Ha!” said my mother. “You know I’m right.”
Fortunately, she seemed to have forgotten what had started the quarrel in the first place, and sat smugly drinking her martini. We were quiet for several long minutes, looking out over the lake, where motorboats with their engines turned off drifted slowly by and fishermen cast lines across the calm water. It was a beautiful evening, but I felt irritable and uncomfortably cold. All around us, glasses clinked and people laughed and chattered. My mother sighed. “Oh, Naomi. I can’t believe summer’s over already. A whole winter without my radio show will be the death of me, it really will.” She gave me a sorrowful look.
I was still angry, but reached out and patted her knee anyway. “Oh, Mama. You’ll never die.”
She gave my hand a squeeze. “Oh, well, I certainly hope that’s not true,” she said.
We walked down Line Drive in the darkening evening, my mother leaning into me. Her feet had never quite recovered from her bunion surgery; she walked with a rolling, precarious gait, like a child on new roller skates. It pleased me that she needed my help. The weight and heat of her body made me nostalgic; I thought of falling asleep on her lap when I was a child. Although that, to be honest, didn’t happen very often.
“You’re getting fat,” she said, prodding my hip.
“I am fat.”
We crossed into Train Line. Ahead of us, the queue of people waiting for Circles stretched right around the lecture hall and down toward the cafeteria. It was the time of day when light-colored clothes seem luminescent—shirts and skirts and socks glowed palely against the gray wood of Fox Hall. My mother had to stop and hitch up her panty hose. People turned and watched, then politely looked away.
Tony K., the hypnotist, was guarding the door. He was new to Train Line, but he had somehow insinuated himself into everything. He had a large belt buckle shaped like a sea turtle and a bad, overlong haircut. He’d already given the Sunday lecture twice, shown up at every picnic and barbecue and message service, and was angling to get himself a workshop next summer. It was galling, especially since he was such an unpleasant person. Every time he opened his mouth, all I could look at were his terrible, battered teeth.
“Miss Galina!” he yelped when he saw my mother. “Let me help you to your table. You’re at number six tonight.”
“That’s all right, Tony. Naomi’s got me. You man your post.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He gave me a wink. I didn’t understand it at all. “Table two, Naomi.” He gave us a bow and opened the door with a flourish.
“That man has no dignity,” said my mother, when we were inside.
A dozen or so card tables were set up in the lecture hall, each with four or five chairs and a squat white candle in the center of it. The candles were the only lighting. In the interest of being aboveboard, none of the tables had tablecloths. Otherwise, it would have felt very much like entering an elegant, though barnlike, restaurant.
“Here I am, Naomi,” said my mother, panting a little. “Get me a chair, would you?”
I pulled out an old wooden chair, the kind I liked.
“No! Not one of those. A metal chair. How many times have I told you?”
A few people turned and looked at us. I helped my mother into her chair, kissed her cheek, and quickly made my way to table two. It was farther over, near the back corner. Its candle was nearly done, the flame tall and smoking. I put my sweater on the back of the chair and went up front to get a fresh candle.
As I wove my way around the tables, I noticed Jenny, sitting in the dark. Her thin red hair was tied in a little knot at the back of her head, and her table had no candle. She looked pale and crabby.
“I’m getting candles,” I told her as I passed. “Do you want one?”
“I prefer the dark,” she said, with an unconvincing smile. Her hands were folded tightly in front of her. There was a rumor going around that she was sick, that she had a disease, but I didn’t know what kind or even if it was true. Jenny did not confide in me.
Ancient Grace Batsummer had the candle boxes. She was trying to shove some leftover candles into a box that was clearly already full; the cardboard was tearing and she was muttering angrily to herself.
“I’ll take one of those,” I told her.
“One of what, dear?” she said, flustered. She was so tiny and shrunken her dress dragged on the floor.
“A candle. Please.” Something about this evening was wearing on me, already. The flickering, pseudo-romantic light gave me a headache.
By the time I made it back to my table with the candle and a pack of matches, Tony K. had started letting people in. Two short, middle-aged women with matching perms were at my table, their purses on their laps.
“Hello,” I said. “I’m Naomi Ash.”
They nodded and looked at each other. One of them, the one with glasses, said, “Are we supposed to tell you our names? Or are you supposed to guess?”
“Well,” I said. “I may never guess. But it’s up to you.”
They looked at each other again. “I’m Judy,” said one with glasses. “And this is Ginny.”
“Nice to meet you.”
There were still three empty chairs. I didn’t really like to do more than four, but so many of the mediums had already left town for the winter we had to double up. As it was, some people were probably going to have to be turned away.
A couple of teenagers came over. “Is this table two?” the boy asked. He had a long, rabbity face and a shock of blond hair. The girl was shorter, plump and nervous. She kept pulling her T-shirt away from her stomach.
I said it was and introduced myself again. Their names were Kevin and Elise.
I lit the candle and got ready. I let my hair down from its ponytail and shook it out, then took some deep breaths and closed my eyes.
“Fancy meeting you here,” said a voice.
It was Dave the Alien, who worked in Train Line’s cafeteria during the summers. He was a small young man with a surprisingly deep voice and no chin whatsoever. He did have very large, rather beautiful dark eyes, and I thought of him as Dave the Alien because an insane woman, a tourist, once insisted he must be an alien, because of those eyes. She had a complicated theory about aliens. Another Dave—Dave Wood—worked as Train Line’s groundskeeper.
“Are you sitting at this table?” I asked, a little bothered but trying not to show it. Reading for people I knew could be tricky when they were mixed in with strangers, like this.
“You bet I am,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for this. You promised all summer you’d give me a reading and you never did.”
“Have a seat, then,” I said, not too coldly, I hoped.
The hubbub died down. Tony K. shut the big wooden doors with a bang. Grace Batsummer tottered over to the podium at the front of the room. I could just see the top of her head behind it. “Welcome, all of you wonderful spirits,” she said in her reedy old-lady voice.
“Microphone,” yelled someone in the back.
Grace paid no attention. “Let’s just skip the preliminaries, shall we,” she went on. “Now. I’m going to say a little prayer. Bless us, spirits, and speak to us tonight. We’re all ready and waiting. Amen.”
Everyone at my table was looking at me. I hated this part, the beginning part. “All right,” I said. “It would help if I could hear your voices first. If you could all just say a little something; I don’t care what. Starting with Dave.”
“Put the pressure on!” he said. “Okay. I work at the cafeteria. Or in the summers I do. Right now I’m unemployed and have too much time on my hands. Is that enough?”
“That’s fine. Next?” Circle Nights tended to bring out a side of me I didn’t like—the condescending, school-teachery side. It didn’t seem to bother anyone else. I guessed they expected it out of a medium.
Kevin was in the chess club and Elise wanted to be a writer. Judy had four daughters and Ginny was planning a trip to Mexico at Christmas. I never told people to talk about them
selves, but they always, always did.
“Thank you,” I said. “Now, let’s concentrate.”
Judy looked panicky. “But—you’re not going to let us ask our questions? I thought I was going to get to ask a question.”
This always rubbed me the wrong way. I wanted to say, I’m not a Magic 8-Ball.
“I’m sorry,” I told Judy. “I don’t answer questions, at least at first. Please, let’s focus ourselves.” What I meant was, Shut up.
Before I closed my eyes I noticed my mother across the room. Her head was on the table, her hair perilously close to the candle flame, her shoulders heaving. The expressions on the faces of the people at the table were shocked and excited. I glanced over at Jenny. Her head was tilted back, and her sitters were holding their linked hands high above the table. I smelled nervousness and breath, and the wax of a dozen candles burning. Above us, the dark crowded down.
“All right,” I said to my sitters. “Let’s hold hands.”
Elise was to my left, her hand plump and damp. With my fingertips I brushed her palm, using only the slightest pressure. I felt a shiver of something there, a heat and desperateness pushing back. Ginny’s hand, on the other side, was cold and inert. I closed my eyes, and fell, right away, into a state of absolute concentration.
“Elise,” I said. “Someone is here for you.”
It was an old woman. She was dressed in a pale green wool suit and had white hair in a mannish cut. I could tell she hadn’t been a spirit very long; there was an uncertainty about her, a waviness. Plus, once spirits get the hang of it they usually show up as younger versions of themselves. She was standing directly behind Elise, her hands resting on the girl’s shoulders, but I could see her clearly only with my eyes shut. I liked her. She was smiling. She said something, her voice fading in and out like a radio with bad reception. Spirit voices are always quiet, quieter even than my own thoughts, and sometimes it’s hard to silence my head enough to hear them. The voice of Elise’s spirit was on the very edge of my perception.
“I’m not getting a name, but she has short hair. She’s telling you not to give up, I think. Does this mean anything to you?”
“My great-aunt,” whispered Elise.
Yes, indeed. The woman nodded, her mouth opening and closing as if she was under water. Stay a little longer, I said to her, in my mind, but she faded.
“I’m sorry, Elise, but she’s…” Then, in a sudden rush, I had what I can only describe as a vision. Sometimes, spirits will send me visions instead of speaking or appearing themselves. Elise’s aunt was probably very shy. I saw Elise in her little bedroom, scribbling in a notebook, the walls pressing around her on all sides, the smell of the heavy fried dinner eaten hours ago, the hated buzz of the television in the next room, someone yelling very far away.
“Work hard at what’s most important to you, though it seems impossible at times,” I said. “You know what I’m talking about.” Her grip on my hand tightened.
“Oh, I will.”
“Your aunt will always be with you.”
Elise nodded. A tear slid down and hung at the end of her nose. The mistake many mediums make is to say too much. If you say the right thing, you do not need to ramble on.
Kevin was harder. I cleared a space for him, but no one turned up. I opened my eyes and took a quick peek. His face was a mask of contempt.
Well. No wonder.
I threw myself in harder. Finally, an old man, his back to us.
Kevin wants to talk to you, I said, as politely as I could.
Rotten kid. He was working on something, a radio or a clock or a toaster, maybe, and he wouldn’t turn around. Goddamn kid never so much as called…
Spirits don’t usually hang on to their earthly resentments for long. He’s sorry, now.
No he’s not! he shouted.
“Seems you had a rocky relationship with your grandfather, Kevin,” I said, opening my eyes again.
The boy just looked at me, his face impassive. Two spots of color had risen in his cheeks, though, so I figured I’d hit home.
You’re not just whistling Dixie. The old man had turned around now, and I could see what he held in his hands: a small china lamp with a pink shade. The man yanked a chain and it lit up. I had no idea what to make of that. When I looked back up at the man’s face, it was much younger, almost handsome. He was smiling, and tears poured down his cheeks.
“I know you won’t listen to me, Kevin, but it would do you good to try and set things right with him.”
“He’s dead,” said Kevin snottily.
I sighed. “That doesn’t matter.” I was about to give up on these two. The man was beginning to fade out, and Kevin was just bristling with rancor. “Concentrate on the living, then. Your grandmother…”
That’s it. His grandmother. The old man was back, brighter than before, holding his lamp out in front of him like a beacon.
My lady love, the old man whispered.
“None of us is here forever, Kevin. You don’t want things to end bitterly with anyone. I want you to go home and call your grandmother, all right? Send her some flowers or something.”
He blushed. I moved on.
The older women were easy, very similar. Crowds of spirit women bustled around, all overflowing with health advice. Don’t overdo the medications, move your body once in a while, extra care with the teeth. I passed these on to Judy, who was shifting in her seat.
“You have a specific question, Judy?”
“Well, as a matter of fact I do. It has to do with my daughter. See, she’s in with a bad crowd. I mean drugs, all of that! What I want to know is, will she be all right? And what am I supposed to do about it?”
Oh, Judy.
“Someone’s watching over her,” I said, and suddenly I knew this was true. Just above Judy’s stiff hairdo, something radiated. “Someone loves her. Is it—it’s not clear to me—is it your mother?”
“Oh!” Judy cried. “Oh, Momma just loved Roseanne!”
“Yes, well. Roseanne’s going through some tough times, and there’s more to come, but she’ll get through them. You have to lay down the line, though, Judy. She needs to know how much she’s loved.”
That would be hard for Judy, I knew. The stricken, love-suffused look on her face told me I was right.
David I left for last. He waited, holding Keith’s and Judy’s hands gingerly, his eyebrows raised.
I couldn’t find a way in. I knew a few things about him, about his crowd of older brothers and sisters, a bar in Wallamee he got beat up in once, his terrible wisdom teeth nightmare. But these didn’t help; my mind suddenly felt restless and prickly, not receptive to anything.
Then, out of nowhere, I had another vision. It was an empty field in pouring rain. The rain came down so hard I could hardly see through it, but I could make out the vague shape of trees off in the distance. It was a cornfield, after the harvest. I saw myself running through the water-filled furrows, tripping and falling, then getting back up. It was strange; I was in my body and several yards away from it at the same time. The stubbled cornstalks raked at my ankles and made them bleed, and the watery field gave off a powerful smell of decay. Rain poured into my mouth and eyes, blinded me. Finally—though the whole thing couldn’t have taken more than a few seconds to watch, it felt like for-ever—finally I fell and could not get up. I struggled for a short time, then the mud pulled me under.
Naomi.
It was Peter’s voice. I jumped, and my eyes flew open.
All five of them were looking at me. “I’m a little tired,” I said. “Give me a moment.”
Peter had never come to me before. But the voice was his; I knew the way his mouth formed my name. I had feared it and I had longed for it, and I had never forgotten his voice. My heart surged in recognition.
I took a steadying breath and told David some hopeful things: chin up, you haven’t found a job yet because the right one hasn’t come around, etcetera, etcetera. I wondered if he could tell I was wingi
ng it. Usually they couldn’t. But David looked disappointed.
Three syllables: Naomi. It was him. It was him.
Afterward, I shook everyone’s hand. I gathered my purse and sweater and pushed in my chair. I was shaking a little. All around people were leaving—chatting and hugging and laughing.
“Naomi.”
“Oh! Oh, Dave, I’m sorry…”
“No, no, it was me. My energy was all wrong. I’m sorry. My fault entirely.” He hunched himself into his windbreaker.
“I was tired. I am tired. I’ll make it up to you, any time you like.”
He made a wry face, obviously pleased. “Well, all right. Hey, how about some time this week? I’ll cook you dinner.”
Oh, geez, I thought. “Maybe. You can call me.”
“Of course. I will. Really, I really am sorry.” He gave me a little wave, and I watched his narrow shoulders disappear into the crowd.
That night, after I walked my mother home, I thought I might watch the television news. Everyone else was in bed. From his room came the sound of Ron snoring, and occasionally I heard the squeak of Jenny’s bedsprings as she rolled around, trying to make herself comfortable. I had never liked television. It embarrassed me to watch people mugging and singing on behalf of new cars and drain cleaner. I waited impatiently through the weather and a car accident or two and the endless shots of ponytailed girls running up and down basketball courts, but there was no mention of the body in the woods. I turned the TV off and sat there for a few minutes, listening to the sound of my breath in my nose, then got up and went outside.
I walked down Fox Street, toward the dock, until I could see the lake spread out in front of me, black as oil. Music floated across the water from somewhere. For a little while I argued with myself: It’s a woman, you heard what they said at the Safeway…they’re most likely Indian bones, anyway, it’s not Peter…Peter was not an Indian. But as I stood at the edge of the lapping water, I gave it up. The bones were Peter’s. Out there in the dark, on the other side of the lake somewhere, his grave was empty. I could feel it. Before, whenever I stood on the shore of the lake, I’d think I could sense him there, across the water. The presence of his bones had always been something I could take an obscure comfort in, a source of heat I could turn my cold face toward. But not tonight.
