Soul Loss

by Amber Foxx

  “Yes, yes. What else?”

  “I’ll get more from the cards after I see your hand.”

  Dahlia exhaled a glassy sigh. “Right or left?”

  “Both.”

  Kate examined the manicured hands. Dahlia probably couldn’t open a jar. Thin as she was, her bones didn’t show much, and her skin was cool and unusually soft. The overall picture in her palms confirmed the cards. “You may not like some of what I’m about to say. The head line is deep, straight and long, the heart line short and straight. The life line is chained and strangely close to the thumb. The mound of Venus is almost flat, while the mound of the moon is oddly prominent, on both hands. This means a person both cold and imaginative, lacking vitality and intimacy. Your only need for love seems to be for sex, and there’s no passion in that. Your mind is strong and focused—”

  Dahlia pulled her hands away abruptly, with a snap through the wrists. Kate finished as carefully as she could without avoiding the problem she’d found. “But I can’t say what’s happened to your soul.”

  Was it possible not to have one? No—but Dahlia’s had to be badly damaged or corrupted in some way to get this reading. Uneasy, Kate thought of Lobo’s growl, but resumed the customary pattern of her work. “Let’s look in the ball.”

  “Yes,” the girl enunciated forcedly. “Let’s.”

  Kate asked Dahlia to look into the crystal ball and to focus on it. Kate didn’t expect her client to see anything, only to send her life patterns into it. It grew smoky and then cleared to show Kate a typical New Mexico highway bordered by cliffs of red rock and bluffs of pink dirt, topped by stubby junipers. Her view was that of a driver seeing a lone hitchhiker in the distance. As she approached the hitchhiker, her car began to spin and then turned around. She tried to turn it again, but couldn’t. In the rearview mirror she saw Dahlia languidly extending her thumb. Another car came and collected the girl. Kate’s car sped away with a will of its own. She pulled off and watched the car that had collected the hitchhiker. A white owl dived at it, and the driver veered into the cliff. The smoke that signaled the end of a vision clouded the ball before Kate could see what happened in the crash.

  “Do you ever hitchhike?” she asked.

  “Do I look stupid? Of course not.”

  “Then the story is a metaphor. Maybe you’re riding with or about to ride with someone who goes off the road in some sense. Drives into the side of a cliff.”

  “Oh my god.” Dahlia crinkled her delicate nose, then abruptly relaxed her face. “So someone around me is going to crash.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  “See, now you’re doing what the fake psychics do, pumping me so I’ll say something you can use to pretend you know something.”

  “Are you calling me a fake?”

  Dahlia looked up at the ceiling, winding her liquid hands around each other. She smiled with just the edges of her lips. “Well, you are a real Gypsy.”

  Kate waited, sensing a contest. When Dahlia sat back, Kate said, “I saw a white owl fly at the car. Does that mean anything to you?”

  Her client betrayed a flash of an emotion so fleeting Kate couldn’t name it.

  “Do you take students?”

  “No. Not until I have children. I’ll teach them.”

  “You can have children? How?”

  “None of your business. Do you have other questions about your past or your future?”

  “Sure.” Dahlia shook her heavy hair and asked with a flutter of her eyelashes, “Will I be rich? Will I marry a handsome man and have beautiful children?”

  “Let me see your palms again.” With a teenager’s contemptuous eye-roll, Dahlia laid her hands on the table. Kate studied them. The flippant questions were going to get real answers. “Money, yes. I don’t see marriage, though. Children ... none future, one past. A miscarriage or an abortion.”

  Dahlia breathed out sharply like a startled deer. Lobo, who was about to finally lie down, reversed direction and stood. Kate said, “The future I see doesn’t have to happen. The past is what it is. But a person can change, so the future can change.”

  “Well, thanks for the insights.” Dahlia sounded a bit sarcastic again, but the tone was more subtle now. “I probably wouldn’t want to study with you anyway. You are so not spiritual. Honestly. You don’t share. You don’t relate. Let me pay you and get out of here.”

  “By all means. Please do.”

  When the door closed behind the departing client, the room felt lighter and brighter. Kate knew she’d bordered on rude, but to a rude customer who’d deserved it. Maybe Kate wasn’t all that spiritual if it meant being wide open to anyone and everyone, including snippy bitches. Kate liked being tough. She had boundaries. She was spiritual enough to stay sober and for her that was enough.

  The strange thing was, Dahlia was even less spiritual than Kate. Why in the world had the girl wanted to study with her?

  Chapter Two

  May 26, Hatch, New Mexico

  “Wow.” Mae Martin had never seen anything like Sparky’s. She outright gawked at the restaurant through the window of her neighbor Kenny’s old Dodge. Antique advertising statues—a towering Uncle Sam who held a green chile in one hand and a red chile in the other, a giant burger boy, and a five-foot metal robot holding an espresso-cup fountain—graced the patio where people lined up at one of the two front doors. “I hope there’s room on the dance floor.”

  Blues Ridge, a legendary country blues group from Mae’s home state of North Carolina, drew a crowd that could hardly fit in a venue this size. Mae had been looking forward to dancing when Kenny invited her for live music at the strange hour of noon on Sunday, but now she wondered if they’d be able to move.

  “We’ll go in the other door for music. There’s always plenty of room. The line is for food.” Kenny peered at the parking lots on both sides of the street. Both were full. “You may need to use your psychic sight to find us a parking place, though.”

  Mae smiled at Kenny’s joke, but it pressed on an uncomfortable place in her mind. She hadn’t used the Sight for months. Caught up in college classes and her job at the campus fitness center, she’d put the psychic-and-healer part of herself on hold, and she missed it. However, no one had asked for her help, and she didn’t use her gift for her own curiosity.

  Kenny drove a few blocks, found a place to park, and they walked back to Sparky’s, passing chile shops and Mexican restaurants. Music poured through Sparky’s walls. A man with long gray hair, a few locks gathered into random ponytails, smoked by the side door and bobbed to the beat. He wore an open Hawaiian shirt, pink shorts, and a purple plastic pendant.

  “You look nice,” Kenny said.

  At first thinking he’d flattered the smoker on his get-up, Mae took a second to register that the compliment was for her. Certainly, she’d earned it more. Her short, sleeveless dress, accented with earrings and flat sandals, showed off her curves and her long, toned limbs. She never bothered with styling her straight red hair and she’d quit wearing makeup years ago, so for Mae this was fancy.

  Kenny said, “Someone’s bound to ask you to dance.”

  “Thanks. Does that mean you’re not going to?”

  Kenny, a muscular young man with curly hair and multiple piercings, was seven years younger and four inches shorter than Mae, but she hadn’t thought this would matter between friends.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I like to just sit and listen. But I’m sure someone else will ask you.”

  The smoker dragged on his cigarette and shuffle-bopped, his arms wagging like chicken wings. It’ll probably be him.

  The tables were full, but the dance floor empty. Shelves crammed with antique cookie jars, toys, and radios lined most of the walls, interspersed with early- to mid-twentieth-century advertisements and a huge bas-relief of a skeletal horse and rider. On a stage backed by a wall of autographs and more of the eccentric decor, Blues Ridge was in full swing. Harold Petersen, the lead man of the band, with his bald hea
d, thick grizzled beard, and round face and body, reminded Mae of a well-used teddy bear. He belted out a hard-rocking country blues, eyes closed, playing his guitar with the fluid touch that only years could give. Mae was both thrilled and disappointed. How could the audience not dance?

  Kenny took a seat at a small table near the death-horse bas-relief. “I think that dude up there wants you to dance.”

  She looked around without much hope, expecting the smoker. “Where?”

  “Up front to the right. He looks like Jangarrai.”

  Jangarrai? It was Jamie’s stage name, his Aboriginal skin name. If anything had tempted Mae to use the Sight—though she hadn’t given in—it was worry about Jamie. Could he possibly have come all the way down to Hatch from Santa Fe? She scanned the front of the room.

  A tall black man rose from a row of old theater seats at one side of the dance floor. He wore a white straw cowboy hat, a parrot-print Aloha shirt, and new-looking jeans. The top layer of his crinkly ash-blond hair was plaited into a curtain of tiny sun-bleached braids, and his dark goatee was braided into a little rope with a gold bead on the end, its narrow point emphasizing that his wide, square-jawed face was fuller and his neck thicker than when she’d seen him last. In spite of the extra weight, he carried himself with grace and power. He took off his hat with a sweeping, theatrical bow.

  Mae’s hand flew to her mouth and she let out a little squeal. It was Jamie.

  Leaving his hat on the seat he’d vacated, he met her eyes and opened his arms, beginning to dance with her from across the room. The place felt alive with his energy, and the audience looked at him instead of the band. A woman in a turquoise cowboy hat started to rise, then sat back down. Jamie’s eyes never left Mae. He’d changed, but not those eyes. Big, black, long-lashed, full of feeling. The dancing would be wonderful.

  The rest might be difficult. Excited as she was to see Jamie again, she never knew what to expect with him. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been so depressed he could hardly function. Their only contact since Christmas had been one fractured call in March, during which he’d tried to make her think he wasn’t crying.

  The months he’d asked for to pull himself together were almost over, though.

  Mae pushed through the crowd. Jamie clasped her in a swing-dance hold, his face-splitting smile sparkling with a gold tooth left of center. She let his lead sweep her away, and they took over the dance floor. An explosion of energy charged her body, and he danced as if he had that same force running though him. At the end of the song, he swept her into an unexpected slide between his feet and back up, and hugged her as she shrieked with delight and surprise.

  In their embrace, she felt both their hearts pounding. The contact made her more aware of the change in his body. Though there was muscle under the layer of softness, he was winded, and his belly pushed into her. No wonder he’d limited the new pictures on his web site to one distant shot in a loose, flamingo-print shirt and had no new videos. Jamie had worried about his weight even when he was at what he called perfect-one-seventy-five. He must feel self-conscious now.

  The next song began. Jamie led her into an easier dance.

  She said, “Good to see you, sugar.”

  “You have no idea how good.” His clear Aussie-accented tenor was soft with emotion. “You have no idea.”

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah. No worries.”

  That was the end of the conversation. Dancing made him work too hard to talk.

  When a slow song began, Jamie drew her in closer. Part of Mae wanted to melt into him, while another part resisted—it was too sexual too soon. “Let’s go outside and talk.”

  “We can wait for the break.”

  “No. Two months without a word? And we hardly talked when you called in March. We can’t just dance.”

  He released her. “Yeah. You’re right. Sorry.”

  He nodded toward the door, picked up his hat from the seat where he’d left it, and pushed it onto his head. Mae brought him over for a quick introduction to Kenny, who expressed his enthusiasm for Jamie’s music and cheerfully turned his attention back to Blues Ridge.

  When they got out into the sun, Jamie transferred the hat to Mae’s head. “More use on you.” His voice was husky. “You’re more beautiful than ever. Jesus. You take my breath away.”

  “Thank you.” She blushed. “How are you, sugar? Really. Tell me.”

  He mimed a juggling act, catching imaginary balls, and then tossed them away with a partial laugh. “I’m all right. More so than not. Want to be shot out of a cannon into fucking samadhi, but what can you do? Still kind of—” He gestured peaks and valleys. “Y’know, getting better at happy. Not so good at medium.”

  “I’ve thought about you a lot.”

  “And you never ... y’know ...”

  She knew what he meant. Never used her gift to check on him. “Of course not.” In the first week they’d known each other, she’d made that mistake, and he’d been furious. “I wouldn’t do that to you. I just worried. Daydreamed. I liked to imagine you were thinking about me, too.”

  “Yeah. Been ...” He wrapped his hands around hers, looked down at them, then back to her face. “Trying to be ready.”

  She felt like both a long-lost friend and a stranger, wanting to rush into loving him, and yet not quite sure she should. “We’ve got a lot of catching up to do. A lot of getting ... I don’t know how else to put it—reacquainted.”

  He looked up at the Uncle Sam with chiles. “Yeah. Planned to be a little more ... dunno. Romantic, I guess. Invite you up. Have my place all ready. Have a date. But here we are.”

  “It’s so funny. You being all the way down here. Kenny told me about the band when I was on my way out the door for a run. I almost didn’t come.”

  “He’s not a date, is he? I mean, you didn’t act like it, but ...”

  “No. He’s my buddy. My back-door neighbor. He expected me to dance while he’d sit and listen.”

  “Would he mind if I stole you, then? I mean, you came with him ...”

  “Steal me how?”

  “Dunno. After the music. Do something.” Jamie swung their hands, watching them. “Got to grab Harold for a minute, but then ... mmm ...” A nervous smile flickered. “Jeezus. Not much to do in Hatch. Guess I can show you the best place to buy chiles.”

  Mae didn’t like to cook. She made a little noise suggesting her doubt about this as a date.

  “Sorry.” Jamie flashed another shy smile at her, and looked back down at their hands. “That’s not the whole date. I’d cook dinner for you after. If you want.”

  Did he mean tonight at her place, or did he want to take her all the way back to his place in Santa Fe? That would mean spending the night, and she wasn’t ready for that. She hesitated.

  “Come on, love.” He ran his fingers over hers. “You remember. I do some serious cooking.”

  She gave in to a playful urge to tickle his tummy. “Looks like you do some serious eating, too.”

  Wrong move. What had she been thinking? “Jeeeeeezus!” He threw his hands up, pulled his fists down, and spun halfway, cussed again under his breath, and faced her. “When you steal a man’s heart, you have to read the bloody owner’s manual.” He yanked a chair out for her at one of the outdoor tables, sat across from her, took an imaginary book from his back pocket and laid it open on the table. “Chapter Five. Fears: Abandonment. Dogs. Dentists. Spiders. Fat.”

  He ripped out the bottom of the mimed page, crumpled it, pitched it, and slammed the invisible cover closed. “I threw out my fucking scale, all right? I’m over it. This is what you get. I’m sick to fucking death of hating my fucking body and killing myself to stay at perfect-one-seventy-five. So love me as I am and let me make the fat jokes. I’m not trying to lose it. I’m making peace.”

  He didn’t sound peaceful.

  “Sorry.”

  “Repeat after me.” He smiled and imitated her sweet little voice and Carolina accent. “ ‘You l
ook great, sugar. You feel nice to hug.’ ”

  Being funny yet also serious, he had her on the head of a pin. No room to move except to go along with him. “You look good. You really do. And you feel wonderful to hug.” She reached over and tugged lightly on his braided beard. “I like this, too.”

  “Well done.” He kissed her hand and kept hold of it as he set it down. “Now tell me about your life. Everything.”

  “I haven’t done that much. I want to hear about you.”

  “Nah. New rules. James Edward Jangarrai ‘Drama King’ Ellerbee has to wait. I’m not the center of the bloody universe anymore.” He looked into her eyes, his lips pressed together, stifling a smile, and then broke into a snort-laugh. He rocked back in his chair, hand to his heart. “Believe that?”

  She wasn’t sure. “Do you?”

  “Nah, but I’m trying. Your go. Six months in six minutes, and then I’m on.” He managed to stay deadpan for a few seconds, then grinned. “Kidding. Take all day.” He tucked his fingers behind his ears and pushed them forward. “I’m all ears.”

  Mae summed up her five months. Jamie leaned on the table, quiet and attentive. She’d made all A’s and B’s last semester, and still enjoyed her job as a fitness instructor. Her stepdaughters from her second marriage had visited over spring break, a sweet yet sad reunion shortly before her divorce had become final in April. Her ex-husband would be marrying his girlfriend soon and giving his twin daughters a new legal mother. Jamie listened, and let silence and the passing of happiness or compassion in his eyes tell her that he’d heard. At the end of her story, he nodded, stood, and invited her in for another hug.

  As sweaty as they both were from dancing and sitting outdoors in the heat, the embrace was wet and messy, yet strangely grounded and comforting. “You’re different,” she said. “What have you been doing?”

  “Besides cooking and eating?” He let her go. “Fuck. Everything I can, y’know? Let’s get some water. I’m dying out here.”

  He began to dance with her as they walked through the door. When they squeezed between the tables, his hips danced against her hips in spite of the obstruction of his belly. They were within an inch of the same height, and met in motion as if making love. She pushed the urge away as soon as it rose. Not yet. At least she wasn’t turned off by his weight gain, but she needed to get used to him again, and find out what had changed on the inside, not just the outside.