by Lila Shaara
A tall black woman appeared from behind the trailer, walking with a wonderful loping rhythm toward the porch steps. She made a wide arc as she passed, avoiding the puddle he’d made with the hose. She clomped up the steps, and Harry could see that she was at least sixty, black hair threaded with white, pulled tight to the back of her head, ending in a bagel-size bun. Her face was wide, with cheekbones that spread like wings under large dark eyes with lashes that looked real, if improbably long. She was taller than Harry, which meant that she had to be over six feet, long-limbed and substantial, giving the impression of strength rather than softness. She was wearing a colorful, flowing, floor-length dress, big pink flowers mixed with green. It occurred to him to wonder if there was some sort of cult out here and big flowered dresses was its uniform.
“Are you the drunken white boy?” said the large woman.
“That would be me,” said Harry.
“Are you drunk now?”
“Only on what’s left in my bloodstream from last night.”
“Good. You can do my porch next if you want.” She smiled wide and drifted past him, then opened the front door. Apparently, she didn’t have to knock.
He had rinsed the porch, cleaned out the bucket, and was coiling the hose, satisfied that the wood was now completely vomit-free, when the two women came out of the trailer. “You can have some coffee,” said the fortune teller.
The coffee had far too much milk in it for his taste, but he said nothing. They were on the dry side of the porch, sitting on chairs of green resin; a huge wooden spool served as a table. Introductions had been made. The fortune teller’s name was Josie Dupree, and the tall woman’s name was Miss Baby. “Baby Thorpe. Before you ask, no, it’s not my given name, but I’m the youngest of seven children and that’s what everyone’s called me since I can remember.”
“So you’re Madame Dupree,” Harry said, looking at Josie. Her long curls were almost black, no doubt dyed that way, her face was coated with makeup, and her lashes were artificially thick.
She said, “Oh, Christ. Whatever. Those goddamned Wiccans.”
Harry asked what had been gnawing at him ever since he regained consciousness that morning. “Why in hell did you let me in? I wouldn’t have.”
There was a moment of silence. Then Miss Baby said, “They can see auras, sweetheart. They knew you wouldn’t hurt nobody.”
“Oh?” said Harry. “Still kind of risky, don’t you think?”
Josie Dupree snapped, “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, so you just keep quiet about it.”
They sipped in silence again as Harry waited for the coffee to take effect. Then he said, “What’s the deal with the Purple Lady’s shrine?”
Miss Baby said, “That’s Miss Tokay’s place. She’s a sweet old lady, and your kind need to leave her alone.”
“My kind?”
“You uppity types. All of you folks over to the college.”
“I was’t going to bother her. I was just curious. She built the damn thing on a highway, for God’s sake. It must be some sort of statement.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Miss Baby. “She’s got her ideas, same as everybody else. It’s her land, she can do what she wants with it. Nothin’ for you to be condescending about.”
“I didn’t mean to be condescending. Sorry.”
Josie changed the subject. “Why’d you come see us? And who’s Lawrence?”
“My dead brother. I thought you could channel him.”
“I don’t do that sort of thing. Sometimes people think I can, and I give ’em what they want if I think it’ll help ’em. But I can’t, really. Did you kill him?”
“Not directly.”
“But lots of guilt.”
“Yes,” Harry said.
“Well,” said Josie, “most of the people I love are dead, too. Everybody’s got their load to carry.”
Harry sat with this for a moment. Everyone drank more coffee. He said, “So you can’t talk to dead people. What can you do? Besides reading auras?”
Josie looked at him, seeming to look around him, as if he was wearing something fuzzy. “You don’t believe me, but I can see that you’re not a happy man.”
“By my aura?”
Josie nodded. “I’m a psychic. And I read cards, do charts.”
“Don’t you read palms?” He nodded toward the hand-shaped sign.
“My sister was a palmist. Not me so much,” Josie said. “One of her men friends made that for her. I inherited it. I like the way it looks.”
Harry was about to ask another question when two small figures burst onto the porch, causing the hinges of the door to squeal and the door to slap back when they were through. Harry hadn’t seen them approaching from behind the trailer. Two little girls, one slightly taller than the other; Harry guessed their ages to be around eight and six. The taller girl was wearing a bright yellow sundress and was beautiful, with silky, coffee-colored skin and the largest brown eyes he’d ever seen. The younger girl was less attractive, mainly because her teeth were so prominent and misaligned that
Harry found it painful to look at her. The thought made him feel racist and mean, so he deliberately gave her a big smile and a wink.
“Where’s my mamma?” said the taller girl.
Josie smiled and said, “She’s at the restaurant, sweetheart, same as the last eight hundred Saturdays. She’ll be back this afternoon.”
“She was gonna show me a bird’s nest she found in the woods.”
Miss Baby said, “The two of you shoo now.”
The pretty girl looked at Harry and said, “I’m Charlotte.” She didn’t bother introducing the homely girl. Harry was about to ask her name when the two of them clomped off in identical pairs of thick white sandals, disappearing around the back of the trailer, retracing Miss Baby’s original trajectory.
Harry said, “Cute girls.”
“Um,” said Josie. Miss Baby said nothing.
“The note I got was from Maggie. Does she live here, too?”
“She’s not here.”
“Your daughter?”
“My niece.”
Miss Baby said, “She works over to Crane’s.” At Harry’s questioning look, she said, “That restaurant down the road, towards town?”
Charlotte’s mother, he thought. “Is she a psychic, too?”
“Don’t take that tone with me, boy,” said Josie, sounding surly again.
“I didn’t know I had a tone. She drove me home last night?”
Both women nodded.
“I’d just like to thank her. And to apologize. How long will she be there?”
After a moment, Josie said, “She gets off at one.” She looked hard at him. “You’re not gonna start nothing with her, are you? She don’t need any shit from anyone from the college. I don’t want you messing with her.”
Miss Baby said, “It’ll be all right. He’s not what you’d call good-lookin’. You kinda soft. Need to lay off the doughnuts.”
“Thanks for the tip. I have no intention of messing with anybody.”
Miss Baby started to push herself off the chair. “I got to get back to my rat killin’.”
Harry said, “Are you an exterminator?”
Both Josie and Miss Baby started laughing so hard that Harry could feel even his scalp turning red. He tried to smile back, but the blood rushing to his head made his hangover worse.
“It’s just an expression, college boy. I got a salon over there,” said Miss Baby once she could speak again, pointing with a long hand past the shotgun shack. “Bring your wife if she wants a shampoo and set.”
“No wife, at least not anymore. But thanks.”
“You could use some prettyin’ up yourself. We don’t do that many men, but we could try to work some magic on you.” This set Miss Baby to cackling again.
Harry was about to walk off the porch with Miss Baby when a thought occurred to him. “Wait,” he said, turning back to Josie. “Someone from the . .
. college told me you said that you knew who’d really invented the Ziegart effect. What’s that about?”
The women looked at each other. Josie said, “I say a lot of things when I drink. That’s why I go to meetings now. I been sober for over a month. I heard about that effect thingamajig on some TV show.” She added, “I don’t say nothin’ you can believe when I been drinking.”
“You right about that,” said Miss Baby.
It was twelve-thirty by the time Harry pulled up to Crane’s. It was a squat, unprepossessing place, but the parking lot was almost full. Harry found a narrow spot next to a Dumpster. The first thing that struck him when he went inside was the quality of the light. Overhead were standard fluorescent fixtures, yet the light was yellower, warmer, nicer in general than he was used to in such places. Otherwise, the ambience felt familiar, like a thousand others of its kind, booths and tables, big glass salt and pepper shakers with metal screw-on tops, cutlery bundled into rolled white paper napkins. A fat man in khakis led him to a two-person booth, the only free spot in the place. He was’t sure why he didn’t ask about Maggie Roth; he was’t sure why he was there at all. He didn’t want to date a waitress, or even meet one. But he wanted to hear her voice again.
The woman who waited on him was in her fifties and had a voice that could peel varnish. As she filled his cup with coffee, he ordered eggs and bacon and toast, finding himself sickeningly hungry. There were three other waitresses, all in black slacks and white T-shirts and little white aprons. All but his were young, and two were fairly pretty, although one was black; if he could trust his soggy memory, his rescuer had been white. His eggs were fluffy and some of the best he’d ever eaten, which he put down to his hangover. When the nonpretty young waitress poured more coffee for him, he was able to rule her out, as her voice was high and squeaky. He decided he was being infantile, so he finally asked her if the other white waitress was Maggie Roth.
The poor girl had unfortunate teeth, and she showed the whole mess of them to him, laughing at his question as if it had been witty repartee. “Why’d you think Maggie was a waitress?” she said, snorting like a happy pig.
“I don’t know,” he said, sounding stupid to himself.
“She’s kind of a retard, you know. She cain’t do nothing with people.”
As opposed to your superior social skills, thought Harry, but said nothing. Her gleeful cruelty suddenly made the remnants of egg on his plate look less appealing.
“She’s in the back,” said the bucktoothed girl. “Why you want her?”
It would be an hour before he realized that he could have told the nosy young woman it was none of her business. Instead, he said, “I’ve got a message from her mother.” I hope Josie doesn’t mind, he thought. What message can I say I’m bringing her? Oh God, that was stupid.
The bucktoothed girl, who Harry could see from her name tag was called Shawntelle, started laughing again, this time even harder. The pretty black waitress, a small woman named Dottie, joined them. “You okay?” she said to Shawntelle.
“He’s got a message for Maggie from her mother.” Snort, snort.
Dottie’s eyes expanded. “What?” Shawntelle continued snorting. Dottie looked at her with tight lips. “It’s not funny.” She turned to Harry. “That’s the meanest thing I heard in a long time.”
Harry’s stomach was’t processing the eggs and bacon and toast at all well now. He suddenly remembered that Josie had corrected him. Not the fortune teller’s daughter. Her niece. Oh, Jesus Christ, the mother was probably dead, and her aunt was a psychic. Oh fuck.
“I meant Josie. I guess that’s her aunt then. I’m sorry. I thought that Josie was her mother. I didn’t mean anything by it.” Double fuck.
Shawntelle said, “He sees dead people.” Her laughter was calmer now. “Don’t worry, she prolly wouldn’t be offended anyway. I told you, she’s a ’tard.” Dottie shooed Shawntelle away with a tug on her arm. Shawntelle moved off with a happy swagger.
He said to the anxious-looking Dottie, “I didn’t mean to cause any trouble. I just wanted to thank her for a favor she did me. It was a stupid mistake.”
After a second, the waitress said, “I’ll tell Maggie you want to see her. You wait.”
4
PAGE OF PENTACLES
An introverted young person
Maggie Roth was too skinny and very pale, with a few freckles on the bridge of a small nose. Her hair was tied in a ponytail and was some sort of blond, dark streaks through it like little rivers of brown through yellow snow. She had on jeans that were too big and a white tank top that fit, so that he could see the stringy muscles on her slight, white arms. The first impression he had of her was that she looked tired. Then he looked into her eyes and was suddenly terrified of her.
He hadn’t seen her coming. She slipped from the kitchen through the crowd silently, eel-like, until all at once she was there in the narrow booth across from him. Her eyes were wide, with shadows under the thin skin beneath, a person who didn’t sleep much. But her eyes were also an explosive sort of blue, like a hundred little bright blue shards of glass were about to shoot out of them. She aimed them at him, and it was beyond uncomfortable, the feeling that she could hurt him with those sharp eyes. Eyes of blades. Then she said in a voice he recognized, “You’re Harry.”
“Yes,” he said. “You’re Maggie.”
She nodded, rationing her voice. Her hands folded themselves on the tabletop, beautiful thin hands, strong, short, clean nails, no jewelry. Harry tried to speak but had to fight the remnants of his night’s work first, coughed, cleared the passages; the second attempt was more successful. “Thanks for driving me home. And for getting me inside.” And for not stealing anything, he thought.
“You’re welcome. You get your car okay?”
“Yes. I met your aunt. And Miss Baby.”
Her mouth flickered. Something was almost funny.
“And Charlotte,” he added, remembering. “And another little girl. I didn’t get her name.”
The flicker was gone. She didn’t seem remotely retarded to him. Maybe crazy. He wanted to ask her if she saw auras, too. Instead he asked, “You work in the kitchen?” even though he knew the answer, and was’t interested in it anyway.
“I cook.”
He had expected her to be a dishwasher after Shawntelle’s contempt. He’d done a stint as one during college; he knew you could do the job and be crazy. He tried to focus through his hangover, tried to search for polite things to say. He had an inspiration. “The eggs were great. The best I ever had.” This sounded unctuous and insincere, even though he meant it, so he added, “Really.”
“Good.”
He felt dumb and awkward and mildly queasy. He wanted to go home and never see this weird-eyed woman again. He had a moment of mild panic. Should he offer her money? A tip? He couldn’t think of a way to do it that wouldn’t be insulting but then wondered if not making the offer would be more insulting, and so he sat there looking at the saltshaker with his mouth slightly open, his sinuses still not working right. He thought, She’s going to think I’m retarded, and this was almost funny, so he smiled, then looked at her, having no idea what to do next.
Her eyes smiled at him, although the rest of her face didn’t. It was strange, he thought, how clear it was, that though her mouth moved only slightly, her eyes were clearly smiling. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what to do. Or to say, except thank you, and I’m sorry for showing up drunk at your house in the middle of the night and throwing up on your porch.” Her eyes smiled more. “But at least I washed it off this morning.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I’m going for a walk.” And with that, she got up and left.
After Harry got home, he tried unsuccessfully to take a nap. He hated hangovers for many reasons, but this one was perhaps the most vicious, that alcohol prevented even rest, stopped him from being able to recuperate in the way that the rest of the world could. All he wanted was to lay his inflamed head on
a soft, cool pillow and fall into a comfortable slumber, just for a few hours. He lay down on his bed, closed his eyes, and felt the first itch behind his right knee, not a terrible itch but enough that he couldn’t put it out of his mind, he had to reach down and scratch, and as soon as that one was satisfied, another one began at the top of his left ear, then the bottom of his foot, then the small of his back, his right shoulder blade, and so on and on, till his whole body felt as if it was splattered with tiny electrodes. Synaptic torture, he thought. Shit.
He got up and went to the bathroom, looking at himself in the mirror, brightly lit by a crazed sun blasting through the window with such energy he had to squint. His hair looked comical, like a tiny version of the Rocky Mountains. He remembered someone saying recently that he was’t much to look at, although it took him a little effort to remember who it had been. Miss Baby. The events of the previous evening and this morning seemed ridiculous, artificial, like something he’d watched on TV. He was deeply relieved that no one knew about his mortification other than Serge. His eyes adjusting, he looked more closely at his reflection. Gray hairs were winding their way through the brown ones. Only a few, but harbingers of things to come. He considered trying to go back to bed, then remembered all the terrible itching, his nervous system’s determination to keep him awake and drive him insane. He decided instead to attempt to work. He turned on his computer, called up a search engine, and sat for a long time, looking at the bright screen and the empty white bar, waiting for his question. For no particular reason, he typed “Ziegart effect.”
In the early afternoon, March already hot and heavy, Maggie came back to the trailer, glowing with sweat. Josie looked up as she walked in, the cards splayed on the table.
