by Huss, JA
The whole thing kind of sounds nice and by the time Vann and I are heading back down the Shrike driveway, I’m already well on my way to dreaming about a life filled with these people.
Vann doesn’t take us home. Instead he pulls his bike up in front of Sick Boyz because it’s well after noon now, and there are people hanging out in the front waiting for their appointment.
He smiles at me and takes my helmet, then fastens both of them to the sissy bar. “That wasn’t my date,” he says, like this topic has been on his mind the whole ride back to town.
“No?”
“Well, not all of it. Obviously.”
“It was a good start.”
“My sister didn’t scare you away?”
“No.” I sigh. “She actually earned you points.”
“Points? Are we on a point system?”
“Mmm-hmm.” I smile.
“What’s my running total?”
“Well, I would give you five points for surprising me with the bike ride and braiding my hair on the porch.”
“OK.”
“And twenty points just for the bike.”
He looks down at his bike and grins. He built this bike with his own hands, so this is a compliment he can get on board with. “It’s the art on the tank, right?”
The art on the tank is a homage to classic tattoos. Brightly colored pin-up girls in vintage sexy bikinis, anchors, and swallows, cherries, roses, and hearts. And, of course, the obligatory heart with arrow and a mom banner flying across the front. It’s sick in a Sick Boyz way.
“Yup, it was the art,” I agree.
“Is that it then? Twenty-five points?”
“No, I give you five hundred points for your sister’s farmhouse.” He chuckles. “And a bonus point because they had ponies in the corral by the barn. And the brunch is worth… mmm… thirteen.”
“So I’m up to five hundred and thirty-nine. What is this out of? Because if it’s five hundred, then I’m in A-plus-plus territory. But if it’s a thousand, then I have to up my game.”
“Hold on. I’m still tallying.”
Vann sits down on the seat of his bike and crosses his arms, grinning at me like a boy falling in love.
“I give you a thousand points for agreeing to babysit.”
He blushes and looks down at his boots.
“And two points for dropping me off at work.”
“So… one thousand, five hundred and forty points. I need the denominator, toots. I need to know how high I should aim.”
“You lose ten points for calling me toots.”
He laughs. “That’s not fair. I really like calling you toots. I’ll tell you what. I’ll give you all the points if you let me call you toots.”
“I’m not the one earning points today.”
He cocks his head at me. “You sure about that?”
I tsk my tongue. “Anyway. Veronica pushed me over the edge no matter what. She likes me.”
“Just let me call you toots. I have to call you something.”
“You can call me Belinda.”
“I do call you Belinda. But…” He leans forward so none of the people on the sidewalk can hear him, and he whispers, “That’s not even your real name. So what do you care if I call you toots?”
Hmm. He’s got a point there. “Fine. You can call me toots. Just don’t call me Rosalinda.”
“Ew. That’s a deal.”
“Tony calls me Rosalinda,” I say. “I hate it.”
“Because it’s his nickname for you?” Vann asks. “Or because it’s confusing?”
“It’s not confusing.”
“No?”
“No. It’s just… stupid.”
“OK.” He puts up both hands in surrender. Then a wild grin fills his face. “I win. So I’m done arguing. So the tally? I’m up to one thousand five hundred and forty. Did I pass the threshold yet? At least tell me if I’m getting close.”
“You’re close. But not there yet.” I try not to smile at him. Or blush. But I don’t succeed in either of those areas. “Let’s call it out of eighteen hundred.”
“So I’m a solid B-plus at the moment.”
“A solid B-plus. For sure.”
He reaches for me, takes both my hands, and then gently urges me to take a few steps forward until my body is positioned between his legs. He lets go of my hands and slides his hands onto my hips, hooking them through my belt loops. Even though he’s sitting, we’re almost eye level and I can’t stop myself from gazing into his eyes.
He sighs. “Well.” Pauses. “I give you all the points, Belinda Baker. Plus a cherry on top for being spontaneous with me this morning and extra credit for agreeing to babysit with me on Monday.”
“Hey!” I laugh. “I never agreed to that!”
His hands come up to my face and he holds them there against my cheeks, his blue eyes hooded now as he gazes back at me. I can see a reflection of myself in his dark pupils. He leans forward, like he’s going to kiss me, but then stops short just before our lips touch.
I erase that small distance between us and kiss him.
There’s no tongue. There’s no moaning or anything like that.
It’s just a sweet, sweet kiss from a boy who finally got his chance.
I pull away first and find him grinning at me. “I’m going to make some beautiful ink art today, Belinda. And you know why?”
“Why?” I whisper.
“Because all I’m going to be thinking about is the way you wrapped your arms around me on the ride today. And the way you smiled at my nieces. And the way your hair felt in my fingertips when you let me braid it. And how tonight, after we leave work, I’m not going to let you go up to that garage apartment.”
“No?”
“No.” He shakes his head. “You’re coming home with me.”
He nudges me backwards so he can stand up. Then he takes my hand and leads me through the small crowd of loitering college kids. And then we walk into Sick Boyz together.
CHAPTER NINETEEN - TONY
OK. Let me set the scene here at Madam Ameci’s House of Fortunes. That’s the name on the small shingle sign swaying outside the small garden-level storefront tucked away down a flight of nearly hidden stairs on the outside corner of the Pearl Street Pedestrian mall in Boulder.
First of all… finding the hidden half-flight of stairs that leads to the entrance is kind of like looking for that Harry Potter train stop in London. You have to walk down four steps then duck under a curtain of fake plastic ivy and turn a corner before you finally see the lacquered red Dutch door built into the side of a brick wall.
The shingle hangs outside and I’m beyond bewildered at how anyone finds this place if you can’t see it from the street, but when we pass through the door and jingle a set of small bells that announce our arrival, half a dozen faces of various ages turn to look at us as soothing meditation music flows down from speakers in the ceiling.
Soshee smiles at them and takes my hand, leads me across the teeny-tiny waiting room to a beaded curtain—now I know where she steals her home décor accessories—and creates a little entrance for me. “She’s back here,” Soshee whispers.
“Should we wait?” I ask. “Until… you know, she’s done with her client?”
“Oh, we’ll wait in the break room.”
I shrug and duck through the beads, then wait for Soshee to slip past me and lead the way down the dark hallway lit up with a long shelf of flickering votive candles.
I can hear whispering from behind a silk curtain as we pass, but once we enter the break room and Soshee closes the door, the whole mystic vibe disappears. It’s a white room with a single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling and a small, old-school TV playing black and white movies on silent.
Soshee points to one of four chairs around a vintage red dinette table. “Sit. She’ll come in when she’s done.”
“Don’t we have to tell her we’re here?”
“Well, she is psychic.”
�
��Right.” I laugh.
“Kidding. I mean, she is psychic. I suppose. But she’s got a security feed on the wall in her office, so she saw us come in.”
“Doesn’t hurt to stack the deck.”
“Never hurts to stack the deck.” I sit and she takes the seat across from me. “She’s going to flip out when I tell her about you.”
“Because Zach Boston is my sort-of cousin-in-law?”
“That. And”—Soshee cocks her head at me—“well, she’s gonna know.”
“Know what?”
“That you and I are now… you know.”
“We’re… what?”
She shrugs. “Connected.”
“By Zach?”
“No. Just connected. In her mind, this is all fate.”
“Well, it could be fate. Or it could be a sequence of events that led to this moment. Rosalinda saw something she shouldn’t have. The dirty FBI has, for whatever reason, made Fort Collins their home base. Rosalinda got sent there. Tara got sent there. Vann is one of those people who pays attention and they all ended up on my family street in Key West because the past finally caught up with everyone and bam. Here we are.”
She winces. “That’s a pretty long sequence.”
“Yeah,” I say, leaning back in my chair. “It kind of is.” I sigh. “So then. We’re connected.”
“I don’t mind being connected.”
“Well, I don’t mind either. I’m cool with our connection.”
“It did get us to a third date.”
I smile, then maybe blush a little. “That it did.”
“Are you worried about the third date?”
“Why would I be worried?”
“Because third date… that’s when… you know. Things get serious.”
“Serious as in…”
“Meeting my mother.” She smiles innocently. “Of course.”
I nod and grin. “Of course.”
The breakroom door opens dramatically and a woman in a long, red, paisley—robe? Shift? Mumu?—walks in, mid-conversation. “—is still hot. I was expecting you earlier, but you know how it is. Predictions are all about degrees of accuracy.” She stops just a few feet away from me and stares at Soshee. “Well. What are you waiting for?”
“Um…” Soshee shrugs. “I didn’t catch that first part, Mom. You started that convo out in the hallway.”
“Tea! Tea! Pour the tea! I left my client in the room to meditate. I only have about six point two minutes before she falls asleep on me and I have to get back.” She claps her hands as she talks. “Let’s get this show on the road!”
Soshee jumps up and walks over to a little kitchenette where a tea pot is sitting on a hot plate. An empty cup is waiting on the counter—tea strainer filled with leaves already positioned over the top—and Soshee pours the hot water over them.
“Don’t stir!” Madam Ameci orders. “He needs to do the stirring!”
“I know. I know,” Sosh says. She brings the cup over to me, hands me a tiny silver spoon, and says, “Stir it.”
“Ahh… why?” I ask, looking between the two of them.
There is a striking resemblance. Madam Ameci’s hair isn’t a deep scarlet red. There are streaks of light that might be blonde or gray. But you can tell it was long and wild, just like Soshee’s, back in her younger days. They have the same face too. I try and find a little bit of Boston in Soshee, but nope. She and Zach share almost no characteristics. She is the spitting image of her mother.
Which—can I just say?—is sorta comforting. Because Madam Ameci is still kinda sexy for being a fifty-something. Even with the paisley robe-shift-mumu thing covering her up from head to toe.
“That’s how I get your vibe,” Madam explains. Soshee tries to retake her seat across from me, but Madam snaps her fingers and points to the chair to my left. “That one.”
“Fine,” Soshee says, and slips into the chair to my left.
“Now you stir the tea.”
“Don’t you want to know who he is, Mom?”
Madam Ameci looks me straight on and purses her lips as her eyes narrow down into thin slits. “I know who he is.”
My eyebrows go up. Maybe she really is psychic?
“You’re the new boyfriend.”
“Ehhhh,” I say, bobbing my head. “I was expecting a little more than that.”
Soshee covers her mouth to stifle a giggle. This earns her a heated glare from her mother. But that only lasts a second. The heated glare darts right back to me. “Do not get smart with me, Tony Dumas.”
My eyebrows go up again.
“I texted her while you were getting dressed earlier,” Soshee says. “She’s cheating right now.”
Madam Ameci stands up straight and gets a little haughty. “I don’t need to cheat.”
“I’m gonna stop you there, Mom. Because what we’re about to tell you is gonna blow your mind.”
Soshee’s mother’s eyes are still locked with mine. “He knows your brother.”
“Yeah,” Soshee breathes. “How did you know?”
Her mother shoots her a look that says, Please. I’m a psychic. But that fades quickly and she sighs as she pulls out the chair across from me and sinks down in to it. “I knew this day would come eventually. And I didn’t need to use any psychic powers to predict it. I, along with the rest of the world, read the special wedding edition of that magazine with the photos of your sister and Jesse Boston. I’m actually surprised it took you boys this long to start figuring things out.”
“There are a lot of moving parts,” I say.
“That there are.”
“You knew about the witnesses?” Soshee says. “And you didn’t warn me? I literally just found out about them on the drive down. I’ve come here to bitch about Belinda Baker like six dozen times over the past couple years and you never said a word!”
“Warnings do no good, Soshee. You know that. Everyone needs to see the truth on their own timeline. And Belinda isn’t part of your story. He is. If you had come here bitching about Mr. Dumas, I would’ve calmed you down and set you straight. But you didn’t. You came bitching about Belinda. She has her own part to play and it has nothing to do with you. Now. Stir the freaking tea, Mr. Dumas. I’m on a tight schedule here.”
“But if you already know why we’re here, then why do I need a tea reading?”
“Silly boy.” She tsks her tongue. “You’re not here for that. You’re here for you.”
“Am I?”
“Stir. The tea.”
“Whatever,” I mumble. And stir the tea.
“Now drink it.”
I stare at the tea and make a face. It smells horrible. And it looks like red mud. “Is that really necessary?”
“Drink the freaking tea.”
“Fine.” I lift the cup to my lips and take a sip.
“All of it. In one gulp, please.”
I look at Soshee for help. “Just do it,” she says. “The quicker you let her read them, the quicker we can get the hell out of here.”
“Nice,” Madam says to her daughter.
I force myself to gulp it. Because Soshee is right. I’ve had about enough of her mother for one day, thank you. Then I set the cup down. Madam Ameci scoops the cup up almost before it hits the table. She peers down at the leaves and nods.
“What? What’s it say?” I can’t believe I even said that. All those years I made fun of Alonzo’s fascination with mermaids and sirens are now coming back to haunt me. He can’t ever know about this or he will never let me live it down.
“Just as I thought.”
“Jesus Christ, Mother. Just tell us.”
“It’s not what has been said, Mr. Dumas,” Madam Ameci replies, looking only at me. “It’s what hasn’t been said. Chew on that, mister. Now,” she says, standing up and straightening her robe-shift-mumu thing, “I have to go. Mrs. Chase is probably snoring by now. See you kids later!”
She makes a little hand wave gesture and then throws the breakroom door open
and whooshes through it, disappearing as quickly as she came.
I look at Soshee. “What the ever-loving fuck was that?”
She laughs. “That was my mother. Aren’t you glad you met her?”
I pick up the cup and peer down at the remnant tea leaves. “But what does it say? She didn’t tell me.”
“She spoke in code.”
“Code? That was vaguebooking at its best.”
“Welcome to the world of professional psychics. Where specifics are overrated and your success depends on how much information you already possess.”
“OK. Whatever. But she’s clearly not very concerned that we all might be caught in some kind of dirty FBI net. This whole trip was a waste.”
Soshee’s face falls a little.
“No. I didn’t mean it that way.” I take her hand in mine. “I’m really glad I got to meet her. I swear.”
“Liar.” She laughs. “I’m not taking it personally. Trust me. My mom is just… weird. I’ve learned to live with it.”
I squeeze her hand a little before I realize what I’m doing. And when she looks up at me, I can tell she’s holding her breath.
Is she hoping for a kiss?
I’m pretty sure I want to kiss this girl. Also very certain I don’t want to do it here. “It wasn’t a waste, Sosh. I could learn to like your mom.”
She stifles a laugh. “I’m sorry she didn’t give you any big revelations.”
“I wasn’t expecting any. Trust me.”
“And I’m sorry that she was so apathetic about our amazing cross-continent connection.”
“It is a pretty amazing connection, isn’t it?”
“Are you kidding me? Bright Berry Beach has a boutique two blocks from here. That can’t be a coincidence.”
“It can’t be,” I agree.
“We would’ve met eventually. Even if you didn’t come looking for Belinda.”
“I didn’t really—”
“It’s fine,” she says, placing a hand on my chest. I suck in a breath when she does that. Because she places the flat of her palm right over my heart. And I’m pretty sure she didn’t mean to turn that instinctive gesture into something more meaningful, but I stop breathing as the heat from her hand passes through my t-shirt and into my heart. “I’m not jealous of her.”