Death Omen

by Amber Foxx

  So far he had. Not a single bad word. He took a gulp of his organic, all-natural vanilla cream soda and belched, apologized, and let the girls’ laughter subside. “I do know better, but I forget to pay attention. Your mum’s been trying to teach me to act civilized, but ...” He shrugged and made a twirling gesture near his head.

  “It’s because you eat monkey food,” Stream said. “You have monkey manners.”

  He took a bite of a sandwich and started to talk through it, gave Mae and the girls a look, and nodded. “Yeah. Monkey manners. If I f—agh, Jeezus, almost said a swear word. No. I did. F— Shoot me. Sorry. If I mess up again you can come up with a way to teach me not to do it. How’s that?”

  Brook asked, “To teach you not to cuss, or to have good manners?”

  “Both.”

  The twins conferred in whispers. Mae reached under the table and squeezed Jamie’s thigh. She was proud of him, making a game of everything that he might do wrong. The smell of sage and dust mixed with the ripe, fruity scents of the picnic, the sun filtered through the cottonwood tree’s sheltering canopy, and a gentle breeze kept them cool. A perfect day. Mae was with the people she loved most, and so far they were getting along beautifully.

  “If you mess up,” Brook declared, “we won’t do our dance for you.”

  “Bl—bleep,” Jamie stammered. “Don’t want to miss that.”

  Doubting he could rein in both his manners and his language a hundred percent, Mae said, “How about if he messes up three times? Three strikes.”

  During the rest of the meal, Brook and Stream dominated the conversation with excited narrations of how Niall was letting them help him build Mae’s new back deck, and Jamie made it through with only two more lapses of manners.

  After they ate, the twins asked Jamie if he would sing the nonsense song so they could show him their dance. While he drummed on the picnic table and sang, Brook and Stream performed their funny-face choreography, causing him to crack up and miss some of the words. The music drew other people to watch, and some to make faces and dance as well. At the end of the song, Jamie took a bow and then directed his applause toward Brook and Stream. The impromptu audience gathered around to talk with him, and Mae hugged her children. “Was that fun? You ended up as part of a show.”

  “It was. We have to tell Jen.”

  Good. Progress on the Jen front. “She’ll be excited.”

  Jamie began drumming on the table again and some of his fans joined in. He scrambled up on it, saying, “Let’s make up a new one,” and began to improvise another nonsense song. Once the audience had learned it, he added a layer of vocal variations while dancing in that gliding, liquid way he had, spinning and stopping and then ripple-dancing again.

  At first Mae held the twins’ hands and danced with them, but then they hollered over the music that they wanted to drum and squirmed between the other people to get closer to Jamie and add their hands to the din, beating on the bench of the picnic table. Mae stayed back and watched, enjoying the rapport between her girls and Jamie.

  By the time the song ended, the crowd had grown by another eight people. Jamie dropped from a triple spin into an elegant bow that made his hat fall off. Breaking off in her applause, a woman in the front of the audience handed it to him, and he sat on the table, surrounded by friends and fans. Mae edged into the group. She didn’t like all those strangers closing in around her girls and blocking her view of them, even if Jamie was right there.

  When she reached the front of the dense little cluster, a current of fear shot through her. Brook and Stream were gone. How had she lost track of them? She cut in on Jamie’s conversation with the woman who had picked up his hat. “Did you see where Brook and Stream went?”

  He nodded and pointed down. Mae peered under the table. The twins crouched close together, perfectly still, and broke into mischievous grins when they saw her. Her near-panic embarrassed her. They hadn’t tried to make her use the Sight. It was a simple, silly prank. But their fascination with hiding worried her.

  She tried to explain it to them again on their way to Jamie’s apartment, walking through the park hand-in-hand with Brook, behind Stream and Jamie. Stream had taken Jamie’s hand on her own, a high compliment to him.

  “Hiding like you did just now was a good joke. But I hope you understand it wouldn’t be funny if you really hid somewhere I couldn’t find you.”

  “But you can find us,” Brook protested. “So how is there somewhere you can’t?”

  “Yeah,” Stream chimed in. “You said our great-granma could find lost people.”

  “In her neck of the woods, yes. Like I could find a lost person in Tylerton or in T or C. But not just anywhere. You know how you said it would be fun if we could use the crystals to Skype with our heads?”

  “I said that.” Brook tugged on Mae’s hand. “And it would be fun.”

  “What I see is kinda like that.” They had reached one of the old upright pianos painted in bright colors that were scattered around the park. This one was lavender with a tree up one side, the words Be Happy in a root-like script near the keyboard, and a series of nested flames like a third chakra image where the sheet music should sit. “If you made a Skype call from here, I could figure out where you were from the piano.”

  Stream pulled at the keyboard cover. “Can you play it?”

  Jamie pretended to sit on a piano bench and mimed playing while singing the notes of a familiar classical piece.

  “Why would they glue it shut?” Stream persisted.

  He stopped playing and came up from his mimed-bench squat. “It sits out in all kinds of weather. It’d go out of tune. It’s just art.”

  Brook studied the tree on the side. “It’d be more fun in someone’s house, so they could play a pretty piano.”

  Mae asked, “Are any of y’all listening to me?”

  “Yes, Mama,” both girls answered.

  They continued along a narrow path, walking single file past cottonwood trees and clumps of sage. Mae went on, “Okay. So let’s say you Skyped me from this path instead of from the piano. I couldn’t be sure where you were. It could be any old path somewhere in New Mexico. If I use the Sight, it’s like that.”

  They passed the skateboard area and then came to the circular rose garden. Up the middle was a small bridge over a pond of blue glass pebbles and succulents. The girls exclaimed about how pretty it was, and Brook said, “If we hid here, you could find us, right? It’s really special.”

  “I’ve been explaining why you shouldn’t hide and make me try to find you. Not where you should do it.”

  “But if we did?”

  “You would be in big trouble. I would never take you to the bug museum again.”

  Was that enough of a threat? The girls gave Mae a proper yes ma’am, but the way they looked at each other afterward made her think they weren’t convinced.

  *****

  Hoping he wouldn’t freak out too badly, Jamie paid their admission to the Harrell House Bug Museum in De Vargas Mall and took a few deep, slow breaths. I can do this. Maybe.

  Mae gave him a quick side-hug. “If you need to close your eyes, just hold my hand. I’ll walk you past the worst stuff.”

  The first room held terrariums occupied by tarantulas. Brook and Stream pressed up close to the glass. “Look! Look! This one says it’s a pink-toed tarantula.”

  “Mama, we need a picture for Jen.”

  Jamie closed his eyes. Too many legs. Seeing any creatures in cages distressed him, and these were cages full of long, delicate, hairy legs and big squishy spider bodies. Mae was asking, “Why would you show her that? I don’t think Jen likes spiders.”

  “No. but she paints her toenails pink.”

  Mae nudged Jamie gently. “You need to let this man in.”

  He opened his eyes just long enough to step back so a museum employee could crouch in front of a glass case and use a black light to show the girls special markings on one of the creepy captives. Jamie shut his eyes a
gain and made himself breathe and think about animals he liked. Systematic desensitization. Relaxation exercises and positive imagery during exposure to the phobic stimulus. It barely helped. This was too much phobic stimulus.

  He let Mae guide him like he was blind, giving him directions where to walk. “We’re out of the tarantula room now,” she said, “but I’m not sure you’ll want to look.”

  A revolting odor shocked him into looking anyway. He was in front of a dimly lit exhibit of large flat yellowish bugs swarming over a rock. Their label read “Giant Cave Cockroaches.” The next enclosure was full of shiny black skunk beetles. Each species gave off its own stench. Brook and Stream squealed their delighted eews and peered at the insects, discussing their behavior and asking Mae why they smelled like that. Jamie bolted from the room and out the front door.

  He was embarrassed, but at least they’d known he might need to escape. Outdoors, he walked across the parking lot, spent a few moments breathing the scent of the juniper shrubs at the edge of the street, then dodged across Paseo to visit the prairie dog town above the river. They smelled a little funky, but at least they were mammals, free-living and reassuringly cute.

  They regarded him with perky curiosity, then went about their business, scampering in and out of holes. Below them, the river was dry, traces of the recent monsoon rains lingering as mere trickles along the sand. A bicycle squeaked to a stop behind him.

  “Hi.” Sierra hauled a clunky old one-speed onto the sidewalk.

  Fuck. Between the devil and the deep blue sea. Between vile-smelling bugs and her. “G’day.”

  “Where are you headed?”

  “Nowhere. Mae and her kids are in the bug museum. Just killing time.”

  “That’s an apt choice of words. Come with me. We need to talk. I was heading to Blake’s for a burger.”

  “Nah. Need to get back.”

  “You don’t look well. Remember our soul group.”

  “You ever smelled giant cave cockroaches? You’d look sick, too.”

  “Don’t joke about it. It’s important. This was karmic, meeting like this.”

  “Bad luck, more like it.”

  “Your bad luck is your karma.”

  Without excusing himself or saying goodbye, Jamie turned and crossed the street to the median, his heart pounding. A car honked. He’d almost walked in front of it. I hate her. I actually hate her. Dodging through a brief gap in traffic, he crossed back to the mall and went into the Starbucks, ordered a gigantic iced soy latte, and tried to put himself back in order.

  Seated at a table near the window, he was comforted by the first sip, but also swamped with exhaustion. Why? His hip ached from walking on pavement, but that was normal, part of life. He was more tired than he ought to be for what he’d been doing. Maybe because heat bothered him lately. Too fat. That was the problem. His weight wasn’t helping his hip, either. If he saw his doctor, she’d tell him to lose twenty or thirty pounds. But he wasn’t going to see his doctor. Fat was a better explanation for his weariness—and his sparkles—than germs. Fat and anxiety. He sucked down the latte. Caffeine and calories. It might make both problems worse, but for the moment, he felt wonderful.

  Serious illness? After all the disasters in his life already? Even his karma wasn’t that bad.

  *****

  “Sweeties, I don’t have to be psychic to know where Jamie would go. I’ll call him, but I’ll bet you a dollar he’s in the coffee shop.” Mae could predict he would be having something sweet, too, not his usual black coffee. A typical stress reaction.

  Brook made a face. “That’s no fun. You should find him the psychic way.”

  Stream seconded the motion with an exaggerated nod.

  “Only in an emergency. For the hundredth time, y’all, this gift isn’t a toy. How in the world have I not gotten that through to you yet?”

  The girls exchanged glances and some suspicious little wriggles. They think my saying it’s not a game is a game.

  They were exiting the last room of the museum. At the desk in the gift shop, a man offered them the opportunity to pet a tarantula. Mae called Jamie and confirmed where he was while the girls stroked the giant spider, and then she took her turn, running a finger down one of its legs. The hair was soft, like a cat’s fur, and the spider held still, surprisingly tolerant of human attention. Friendlier than Gasser had been when they’d stopped by Jamie’s place. The cat had farted and hidden under a chair. Not that Mae blamed him. The girls had been wound up and noisy. At the sight of Bouquet, they had squealed and jumped up and down, exclaiming that she was a dinosaur, making her quiver and back away. Even the sociable Placido had fanned his tail feathers and stared, not saying a word.

  Mae felt bad for Jamie. He’d started off so well with her girls, and then his pets had rejected them, and his attempt to endure spiders and insects had failed.

  “Be nice to him,” she reminded the girls as they walked to the coffee shop. “Don’t tease him about being scared or try to gross him out with things you liked in there. Sometimes I forget and start telling him about some critter I saw, but I try not to do it on purpose. He was brave to come in with us at all.”

  Jamie looked up from a copy of the local free paper and beamed his wide gold-toothed smile at them, not quite at full strength.

  Mae took the seat across from him, and the girls pulled their chairs up close to him.

  “Are you feeling better?” Stream asked.

  “Yeah, thanks. Ya have fun?”

  “We did, but we won’t tell you about it.”

  “Good idea.” Sliding The Reporter across the table to Mae, its back page ads facing up, he said, “Look who’s advertising.”

  Mae scanned the blocks of short promotional announcements. Massage, Reiki, personal training, astrology, Feng Shui, house cleaning, ghost removal ... Past Lives and Chronic Illness Support Group with Sierra Mu. “Her last name is Mu?”

  Brook mooed. Jamie snort-laughed. “People give themselves funny names around here.”

  Mae asked, “Is it a Greek letter? A Chinese word? What?”

  “Dunno. But I hope that address isn’t her house.”

  The group was meeting at a place on Quintana Street. “I never heard of it. Where is it?”

  “Right across the river, off San Francisco. I just ran into her. Too close to my neighborhood if she lives there.”

  “It’s not that close, sugar.”

  “Yeah, but it’s still too close.”

  “Why don’t you like the moo lady?” Stream asked.

  “She’s pushy. Keeps telling me crazy stuff about how she knew me in a bunch of past lives.”

  The twins frowned, clearly bewildered by this.

  Mae said, “Some people believe that when you die, you don’t go to heaven. Instead, you come back again as a different person.”

  “How could you know?” Stream asked. “Since you’re a different person?”

  “Dunno.” Jamie slurped the last of his drink. “Maybe you remember being someone else. Can’t figure out how she thinks she knows me if we were both someone else, though.”

  Something about this struck the twins as so silly they erupted into giggles, spurting bits of nonsense such as “I’m not me” and “You’re not you” and mooing, “I knew yoo-oo when you weren’t yoo-oo and I’m Mrs. Moo-oo-oo!” The hilarity was contagious, overcoming Mae and Jamie as well.

  “Jeezus.” Jamie caught his breath, wiping tears from his face. “I’ll have to think of that if I see her again. Laugh my arse my off instead of getting mad at her.”

  Mae said, “That would drive her crazy. She takes herself really seriously.”

  “I know. That’s what so great about it. If I can remember to do it.”

  Chapter Six

  Mae and the twins had departed for Truth or Consequences, and their absence left Jamie drained and empty. He couldn’t lie down and give in to his fatigue, though, because he had to take his pets for their outing. It was hard for the parrots to fly much
in the apartment, especially Bouquet, with her four-foot wingspan, and Gasser was unlikely to exercise at all unless Jamie walked him.

  He got each animal ready, birds in flight harnesses and Gasser in a little red walking harness. With a parrot perched on each shoulder, he managed to kneel and lift Gasser, since the cat declined to move. Holding three leashes in one hand, Jamie opened the door and nearly tripped on a suitcase. A pudgy pre-teen Indian boy stood gazing up at him, one hand raised to knock. Ezra Yahnaki.

  “Ma-a-a-ate. What are you doing here?”

  “Did you forget?”

  Ezra turned and waved to someone in a small black car. The driver, his godmother Bernadette Pena, waved back and drove off, as if they had this all figured out. Then Jamie realized they did. They’d planned it so many days ago he’d forgotten. “Almost.”

  “Can I come in?” Ezra asked.

  “Uh, yeah. Yeah. Sorry.” Jamie stepped aside to admit his guest.

  Ezra was spending a month with his godmother, who lived just outside of Santa Fe. She and her significant other were faculty colleagues of Jamie’s father, Stan Ellerbee; Ezra’s grandmother, a Mescalero Apache medicine woman, was a key informant in Stan’s anthropological studies of indigenous religions. Through this series of connections, Jamie and Ezra had developed a strong bond, and Ezra stayed with Jamie whenever Bernadette and Alan wanted a romantic night together during his visit.

  “You’re covered with animals,” the boy said

  “Yeah. Heading out to walk Gasser and let the parrots practice flying.”

  “They have to practice?” Ezra frowned at the birds. “They don’t look like babies.”

  “Nah. They’re about a year old. Had their flight feathers trimmed in the bird store, though, and they’re still growing out.”

  They walked across Don Diego and down a short residential street to Orlando Fernandez Park. The cat waddled alongside them, frequently stopping to sit. Ezra didn’t talk unless prodded. It was like trying to make Gasser keep moving. Jamie did his best to pump a conversation out of the boy, but his questions about Ezra’s schoolwork, friends and family earned nothing but one-word answers.