Lies I Live By

by Lauren Sabel

  “I do,” I say, and I mean it. Charlie loves me, that’s all. End of story.

  “Sunset!” Colin shrieks, and sprints upstairs. We have to follow, but we do so slowly, kissing every step of the way.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I’m late to the office on Wednesday. I go straight to the viewing room, hoping I beat Indigo there, but when I open the door, Indigo is sitting in his leather chair, waiting for me. Standing next to him is Monty, wearing patched-up jeans, black combat boots, and a black leather jacket. He’s sporting a baseball cap turned backward, and the little Oakland A’s symbol stares at me from the back of the hat.

  “You an A’s fan?” I ask. I’m surprised; he looks as if a particularly vibrant game of chess would exhaust him.

  Monty doesn’t respond, he just turns the hat around so it faces me. After the A, printed in small black letters, is the word holes.

  “So no,” I say.

  Indigo is jotting something down on his notepad, and he barely looks up, so it’s just Monty and me staring at each other across the room. “Good guess,” Monty replies.

  “What’d they ever do to you?” I ask. “Miss catching a baseball in the stands?”

  “Something like that¸” Monty says.

  “His dad used to own the team,” Indigo clues me in, still not looking up from his paperwork.

  “That right?”

  Monty nods. “Don’t tell me you’re a fan.” He says fan in the way I’d imagine him saying A-hole.

  “You just heard the extent of my baseball knowledge.” I cross the room, throwing a curious glance at Indigo, and then settle down on the couch across from him. On the table in front of me is a stack of blank paper, ready to be filled with my visions.

  “Well, personally, I don’t give a damn about baseball,” Indigo says, still looking at his notepad. “Unless they’re moving the ball with their minds.”

  “That’s literally the only thing that could make it interesting,” I say.

  “You said it,” Monty agrees. We glance at each other, briefly surprised we agree on something, and share a small smile.

  “Callie’s our youngest,” Indigo says, finally looking up, “and our brightest.”

  “Callie Sinclair,” Monty says. “Graduated high school early, raised in the city, daughter of famous scientist Allison Sinclair,” he taps his bottom lip. “And able to see radiation.”

  Only a handful of people refer to my mother as famous, and all of them work at either Stanford or NASA. You don’t become famous in any other circle for solving a physics equation that’s never been solved before. But he certainly doesn’t look like anyone I’ve met at the stuffy holiday parties. “You do your homework,” I say.

  Monty nods. “Indigo says you’re crazy talented.”

  I’m uncertain which word he’s putting more emphasis on, but I decide to go with the compliment. “Depends on who you’re talking to,” I say. “Some say talent, others say freak.” I stare at him, daring him to disagree with me, but he doesn’t. Apparently Indigo has told him about our reputation in the CIA.

  Indigo looks at me sternly. “Monty’s a generous donor to our program,” he says.

  “Really.” I can’t stop the disbelieving look that creeps over my face.

  “Really,” Monty responds. “Much to my father’s disappointment.”

  “He didn’t believe in psychic powers?”

  Monty grimaces, and an angry look comes into his eyes. “He believed in money.”

  “And you don’t?” I ask.

  He hesitates. “I believe in what money can do, not what it can buy.”

  Indigo clears his throat, and we both look over at him. “Anyway. When Monty told me what he needed, I told him I had the perfect person for it.”

  “Perfect could be overstating it,” I respond, a smile creeping across my face. “But only slightly.”

  Indigo stands up and walks across the room. “I’ll have to ask you to wait outside,” he says to Monty as he pulls the door open. “We don’t allow anyone to watch the session from inside the room. It creates distraction that can result in incomplete information.”

  “I know. I’ve dabbled in the psychic arts myself,” Monty says.

  I raise my eyebrows. “Do say more.”

  “Indigo knows all about my time in India with my guru.” He glances at Indigo, who seems to be trying not to roll his eyes. “Maybe later,” Monty adds. “I’ll be outside.”

  He walks out and shuts the viewing room door behind him.

  “Do I get to know what’s going on here?” I ask, although I already know the answer. All of the psychic viewers are on a need-to-know basis, and we rarely need to know anything.

  Indigo returns to his chair and starts fiddling with the buttons on his yellow plaid shirt. “He contracts with a branch of the government that can pay a lot more than the CIA can. I know we usually don’t take on outside work, but he pays ten times what the CIA pays, and they’re not giving us enough to stay afloat.”

  I lean forward in my seat and try to catch Indigo’s eyes, but he suddenly has several other places to look, and none of them are at me. “What do you mean?” I ask. “What happens if we don’t stay afloat?”

  Indigo shakes his head. “Closing the doors is always an option. Not to me, but you know what most of the CIA thinks of us. I’ve always suspected they could pull their funding at any moment, and well, here we are.”

  “Are they cutting us off?”

  “Not completely. But the taxpayers want more transparency, and well, let’s just say that’s why I negotiated the ability to take on outside clients. For situations like this.”

  I nod. It’s a touchy subject with Indigo. We spend our lives finding reliable information for the CIA, but, according to Indigo, they continue to think of us as quacks, and often threaten to withdraw our funding entirely. Indigo says that’s because they can’t understand that psychic viewing isn’t all that different from seeing or hearing something right in front of you: It’s just another sense that we’ve gotten really good at using. But try telling that to someone sitting behind a desk pushing paper for the government.

  “We don’t have much of a choice,” Indigo continues. “And Junior, I mean, Monty, he’s a good guy. Just trying to right his father’s wrongs. So focus today.”

  It’s useless to ask Indigo questions at this point, so I just pick up the stack of blank paper and the pen from the coffee table, and then I close my eyes and settle back on the couch. Across from me, I can hear Indigo shift in his leather chair.

  As Indigo counts down from ten to one, I imagine myself on a boat in the ocean. His voice is soothing, and I am soon flying through a black abyss, nothing below me or above me.

  It’s so dark that I wiggle my toes and fingers to make sure they’re still there. After a moment, my feet land on something solid and firm, and when I look down, there’s red smoke seeping out of the ground.

  I study my surroundings to get more clues of my location, and I instantly feel my hand moving across the paper. I keep my eyes closed, focusing only on the dark lines of hills and rocks around me.

  Am I in the mountains? I wonder before I can stop myself. I push the analytical thoughts out of my mind and focus purely on what I’m seeing, not what I’m thinking about what I’m seeing.

  Moments later, I can feel my hand drawing circle after circle, one inside the other, like rings of a tree. My muscles start to cramp, and then, as my hand gives out, suction shreds through me.

  The next thing I know, I’m opening my eyes. I’ve drawn a bunch of ragged lines, representing rocks and hills. In the middle of the page is a giant circle, with a dozen smaller circles within it, signifying depth. The smallest circle, the size of my pinky nail, is so full of black that I’ve ripped through the page with the pen tip.

  Indigo leaves the room to let me fill out my report in silence. I’m not sure exactly what I saw in the dark, but it’s not important for me to know. I just write down the things I saw and felt, trying
to avoid using the words “like” or “as.” Even though I’ve been filling these out for over a year now, it still takes effort to avoid any comparisons to anything else. How do you describe a square with a triangle on it unless you call it a house? Or a box supported by four circles if you don’t call it a car?

  Indigo knocks on the door and pulls it open at the same time. “Are you ready? Monty’s been waiting a while now.” I nod. Ready as I’ll ever be. “Just try to be clear about what you saw.”

  In the doorway behind Indigo, Monty is crouched down on the floor. He’s trying to weave one of his long boot laces through the dozen metal holes, but his fingers are shaking so he keeps missing. We both wait quietly for him to finish.

  “It takes a while to look this stylish,” Monty brags when he finally looks up. Although his voice is cocky, I can tell that he’s nervous about whatever I’m going to say. I don’t blame him for being nervous. I’m not sure why he is taking it on himself to right his father’s wrongs, like Indigo said, but by the anxious look on Monty’s face, I can tell he’s afraid that what I saw will be something he doesn’t want to hear.

  Indigo gestures for Monty to take his leather chair, but he shakes his head.

  “You take it, old man,” Monty says, and Indigo scowls at him.

  Monty comes in and leans over me awkwardly, studying the picture I’ve drawn. The ragged lines and concentric circles mean nothing to me, but they obviously mean something to Monty. For a brief second, his cheeks rise and wrinkle slightly, two micro-expressions revealing joy.

  “Is this everything you saw?” Monty asks.

  “I’m not sure what I saw,” I admit. I’ve never had an interaction with a client before, and it feels both strange and satisfying. Strange, because I usually don’t know what I’m looking for or why. Satisfying, because even if I haven’t found it yet, I think I’ve made progress, and the pleased look on Monty’s face makes me realize I’m helping someone. I always am, I guess, but this time, it’s different: this time I can see it.

  “Is this a hill?” Monty asks.

  I shrug. “I only see it. You analyze it.”

  Monty studies the black hole I’ve ripped in the center of the picture, leaning forward so far his shirt brushes my shoulder.

  “Is this info helpful?” Indigo asks.

  Monty nods. He shoves his hat down onto his head, so low that I can’t see his eyes anymore, and then he traces my lines on the paper. He starts with the outside circle and follows it inward until he reaches the dark center, his fingers walking a trail that only he can see. “So this must be it,” he mutters, “this must be the leak.”

  I wonder what it is about Monty that makes him determined to clean up his father’s messes. If there is a toxic spill from one of his dad’s mines, wouldn’t the news know about it? Or is Monty trying to clean up the leak before the media finds out, or before people get hurt? I suddenly want to know that I’m making a difference to people, maybe even saving lives that I usually can’t save in my sessions. “Do you think you can contain the radiation?” I ask, knowing it’s entirely inappropriate of me. But when have I ever been appropriate?

  Indigo looks at me sternly, but Monty just nods.

  “I think so.” Monty points to a curvy line an inch above the circle. “If this really is the leak, we might be able to contain it.” He zips up his black leather jacket and pulls the collar higher around his neck. “Thanks for your help,” he says to Indigo. He nods at him, and Indigo nods back. Then, to my surprise, Monty turns to me and awkwardly sticks out his hand. “And thank you, Callie.”

  It’s weird being thanked for psychic viewing. I’m so used to not knowing what I’ve found or who the information will affect that I’m not sure what to feel about it. But just not having to hide my talent for once is enough.

  I stand up and shake his hand. “Anytime,” I say, and I mean it.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Mom is waiting up for me when I get home. She looks stressed, and I remember the old days, when we used to stay up late together talking about her newest boyfriend or what happened to me at school that day. Now we’re both too busy.

  I drop my backpack beside the kitchen table. “Richard not home tonight?”

  “Another all-nighter at the station. But he dropped this off for me.” She holds up the half-empty bottle of red wine. “He’s so considerate. Just when I needed it.”

  “Why? What’s wrong?”

  Mom shakes her head, and I realize that she confided her worries in Richard this time, not me. It makes me feel somewhere between pleased and replaced. “Just work stuff,” she says. “Ruining students’ lives. Handing out Fs like candy.”

  I haven’t seen the funny side of her in forever, and it makes me smile.

  “I didn’t know you had such expensive tastes,” I say, pointing to the bottle’s label, which proudly portrays the year 2005. I don’t know much about wine, but I do know that a bottle over ten years old isn’t cheap, and that it usually means something.

  “Richard said someone at the fire station gave it to him.” She shrugs, and pours herself another glass. “Want some?”

  Did my mom just ask me to drink an alcoholic beverage? “Um, okay,” I say, opening up the cupboard and getting myself a wine glass. I sit down across the table from her and pour myself a glass.

  She puts her hand out when it’s halfway full. “A taste, I said.”

  “You didn’t actually say that,” I point out.

  “This relationship thing,” she sighs. “How do you do it?”

  “Someone’s got to,” I say, but then I see the seriousness on her face. “Did something happen with you and Richard? Is this an apology bottle?”

  She shakes her head. “I just don’t want to screw up again, for both of us.”

  At first I think she means her and Richard, but then I realize that by us, she means her and me. “What did he say?” I ask.

  “Nothing important, but my track record isn’t good,” she says. “I just don’t want to fall apart again,” she adds, finishing her glass and reaching for the bottle. “Your father . . . he was the only real love I ever had.”

  I hardly breathe. She’s talking about Dad. How many years has it been?

  “And when he left without a word, well . . .” She trails off. “He was the type of man who always knew what I was thinking, do you know what I mean?”

  I nod, thinking of how Charlie can always guess my mood and settle my nerves with one word.

  “You don’t need to hear this,” she says.

  “Yes, I do,” I insist. “I want to know who he was, and what he was like, and—”

  “I want to answer your questions, Cal,” she says, her eyes finally meeting mine. “But I just don’t know. I thought we were in love. And he adored you,” she adds. I roll my eyes, but she takes my chin lightly in her hand and makes me look at her. “Adored you. Like you were the only person on the planet. Even I was jealous.” I feel myself blush, and she lets go of my chin. She downs her glass and picks up the empty bottle. “Now give me that glass,” she adds. “You shouldn’t be drinking anyway.”

  The office is strangely quiet the next morning, but it’s not that peaceful type of silence, the kind you feel you could float away in. It’s more of a stewing nervous type of quiet, where you can tell that something went terribly wrong and you are the last person to know about it.

  Jasper is sitting at the table in the staff room, drinking coffee from a Styrofoam cup. His face is creased with anger. Across the office, Indigo is perched behind his desk, his phone clamped to his ear. He looks relaxed, and anyone who doesn’t know him as well as I do would think he is—but I can tell from the way his mouth is tightened into a thin line that he is barely holding in his anger.

  “What happened?” I whisper to Jasper, sitting down beside him at the table.

  “Just because I’m new here,” Jasper says, “doesn’t mean I can’t see what’s right in front of my face.”

  “What’s in front of yo
ur face?”

  He looks up at me and back down into his cup of coffee. The overhead lights reflect in the brown liquid. “Never mind.”

  “Were you fighting with Indigo again?” I ask, but Jasper doesn’t answer.

  “Ready, Callie?” Indigo asks, popping his head in the doorway. He doesn’t even glance in Jasper’s direction.

  I follow Indigo into the viewing room, glancing back at Jasper. He’s glaring at Indigo’s back, but when he notices me watching him, he winks. I can’t help smiling.

  “Let’s get started,” Indigo says, shutting the door of the viewing room and sinking into the chair. I can tell by his voice that he’s still irritated with Jasper.

  “What’s going on between you two?” I ask, sitting on the couch across from Indigo.

  Indigo shakes his head. “I run this place. All opinions are welcome, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to take them. Do you know what I mean?”

  I shake my head, and he sighs.

  “Jasper doesn’t like us working for Monty. He thinks it compromises our security to view for private companies, even if they do contract with the government. I’m not sure I disagree with him, but I also know that if we don’t make more money, we’ll have to close the doors.”

  “It’s not like Monty’s hurting anyone,” I point out. “If he’s willing to pay to clean up his dad’s messes, and he has the resources to do it, why shouldn’t we help him?”

  “I feel the same way.” Indigo smiles grimly. “I get Jasper’s point, I really do. Monty’s still private industry, even if he’s trying to do good. But our relationship with Monty is especially important right now, since we need more money to keep our office open,” he says, and then he hesitates. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be talking about this with you.” He leans back in his chair and taps his pen three times against the palm of his other hand. “Why don’t we get started?”

  “Okay.” I sit back and close my eyes. “But you can talk to me anytime, you know.”

  “I know,” Indigo says, and even through my shut eyes I know he’s smiling. “Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .”