Foods, Fools and a Dead Psychic

by Maria Grazia Swan

  “I think I know how the cops found out it was my bra.”

  “You serious? How?”

  “Crap, one pissed-off blonde heading this way.”

  I heard the clapping of heels before I saw Celine. Made a quick turn around and went back into my Switzerland-safe-zone. Celine must have not received the note about kitchen neutrality. She flew in, minus the broom, and demanded a clean mug.

  “For Tristan,” she added with a smug smile. I pointed to the stash on the counter and exited as fast as I could. I barely made it back to my cubicle when I heard a commotion, a crash and an ear piercing shriek. Celine had accidentally dropped the coffee. I peeked at the scene, along with every other agent in the bullpen. The blonde was so angry, she kicked the broken pieces of china around and hissed crazy stuff like “magic potion, what now- no fair.” No one moved, knowing her nature. She would have probably retaliated against anyone brave enough to volunteer to help her clean up the mess.

  Celine’s mother and Tristan Dumont, however, did come out of the glass box to check on the ruckus. The blonde’s expression changed and she threw herself against the object of her — affection — landing on his chest in spite of the cool Mr. Dumont showing signs of clear panic while fending off the body-to-body warfare. The whole scene was so comical I didn’t even feel a bit jealous, just a whole lot of sadness for all of us involved, willingly or not.

  FOUR

  BY THE TIME I parked my Fiat in the office parking lot, it was past one o’clock and my stomach gurgled loudly. I had bypassed two of my favorite fast food places in order to do lunch with Kassandra, I didn’t care where. Today the main item on my menu was pure gossip. Before getting out of the car I scouted the surroundings, checking for familiar cars I wished to avoid. Okay, not the cars, the drivers. Celine’s blue Sebring convertible, gone. Sunny’s Cadillac, nope, not there. Tristan Dumont’s white Land Rover. Get a grip Monica, the Land Rover? Smashed to smithereens when a semi fell on it with you two in it... remember? I had no idea what kind of car he drove now. Better yet, I didn’t even know if he was driving. Deep breath Monica and march right in there. I did. Kassandra gave me an exaggerated hand wave and kept talking on the phone. I nodded, walked directly to my cubicle where I dropped my briefcase and proceeded to look for Kay.

  Kay was one of the senior agents and had her own little private office. She had also mentored me since the first day I received my license. All that with Sunny’s blessing, of course. I wanted to discuss with Kay this new referral I received thanks to Brenda’s connections. The couple selling the patio home had already purchased in the Scottsdale retirement resort where Brenda worked as a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist. They took their time, aware it would be their last move, I imagine. Every object, down to the furniture, artwork and rugs had to be itemized. Keep or dump? The shedding now complete, it was time to list their place for sale. This property was in a very nice neighborhood, but the home needed updating. Also, it was in a community that was age restricted, 55 or older. I had no doubt Kay would know exactly how I should handle it.

  “Normally I would suggest waiting until after the new year to list. People aren’t looking to buy weeks before Christmas,” she said. “But with the age restriction factored in and the fact that it would be the only active listing in such a sought-after area, I say go for it. Snowbirds will be flocking in fleeing the harsh winter back East. They may come to visit relatives and who knows? Decide to stay. You need to stage a little, get great pics, some twilight scenes, and since there is a man-made lake on the spot, make sure it gets included in at least a few photos. Create a sense of romance. Never too old for that. Do you know who to hire for the photo shoot?”

  I nodded, “Yes, I’ve been using all the people you recommended from day one. I’m very happy with them. Is it okay if I show you some comps and some of the numbers I’m coming up with? No, not this instant. I’ve only been inside the home once. Maybe after I meet the photographer. That usually gives me a chance to see every angle, every nook through the fresh eye of a professional.”

  Kay nodded her head, obviously pleased and I was happy about that. I headed back to my cubicle where I kept my info but before I turned the corner Kay called out to me, “Hey Monica, I hear Colter Cadillac is having a very nice clearance sale.”

  Ouch. I didn’t turn around, didn’t stop walking. I raised my hand above my head and waved to let her know I heard her. I listened to her amused laugh chasing me as I walked away. Cadillac, right! Who did she think I was? Tristan Dumont? Back in my cubicle, I looked at everything that sold in my client’s neighborhood in the last four months. It wasn’t much and everything moved fast. Good. The new year was shaping up to be good as far as real estate was concerned. With the Dumont’s horse ranch scheduled to close, and one of my own escrows, a small house I found for a young couple I met at the Doggie Day Care where we took Dior once in a while, and now this property in toney Scottsdale. Good. Kay had mentioned snowbirds visiting for Christmas and suddenly images arose of the Dolomites and Fongara, the mountains close to home where we used to ski as kids... my sister said it had snowed. Stop it, Monica. You can’t go home again. Focus.

  My cell chimed. “Kassandra? What’s keeping you? Are we doing lunch? I’m starving.”

  “It’s complicated,” Kassandra replied.

  Huh?

  “I’m feeling guilty about this morning and Sunny has been more than accommodating. I can’t leave the office.”

  I started to protest.

  “Shssh — let me finish. I called Safeway and ordered two pounds of chicken tenders, a pound of kale salad, rolls, butter, the works. Get in your car and park in their pick up slot. They’ll bring you the food. It’s all paid for. We’ll eat in the kitchen. I think there are only four of us left at the office,” she continued.

  I had to catch my breath; part of me was pissed off she did all that food ordering without even consulting with me. The other part felt pretty good. I liked the Safeway chicken tenders and if Kassandra was right, we’d be eating and gossiping in about eighteen minutes.

  “What happened? Cat got your tongue?” Kassandra again. I stood and stepped to the side. I could see her sitting at her desk, looking at me and laughing.

  “Where is everyone now that you mention it?” I spoke while getting my purse.

  “Double Wide.” She said. Ouch. Double Wide was the nickname we had for a new and very aggressive broker who swept into town two months ago, opened a brand new real estate office in a swanky glass and steel building, a rather unusual move in the conservative Arcadia neighborhood. And D.W., the initials of his name, kept doing elaborate open houses intended for poaching the top producers from other real estate offices. Word in our office was he had been courting Kay. Our Kay. So we called him Double Wide even if he really wasn’t. I only met him once. I thought he wore very nice Italian loafers and silk ties. And apparently his open houses were always catered. I made a note to ask Brenda what she knew about that.

  Twenty minutes later Kassandra and I were slouching in the kitchen. She kicked off her shoes as we chomped furiously through our golden, crunchy chicken tenders.

  “From now until January this place will be as quiet as a library,” she said.

  “Never mind that, I want to hear about the search warrant. What is it the detectives are looking for? Did they mess up your house? What?”

  “Monica, you watch too many cop shows. It isn’t like that in real life.” She scooped a generous helping of kale.

  “Maybe, but I know you’re avoiding my question. Did you meet Miss Fortune at the Psychic Fair?”

  Kassandra stopped, plastic fork in mid air, “You know about the fair?”

  “Brenda told me.”

  “Your aunt went to the fair? I never pictured her as a...”

  “Noooo. She read about it in the paper and told me when they were showing Miss Fortune in the news. Stop playing stupid. Did you or did you not go to the fair and run into the poor, you know...”

  Kassa
ndra scowled, fiddled with her fork, just as she was doing the other day at North. “I hate this.”

  “You hate your food?” She ordered it.

  “No, not the food.” She stood and walked barefoot to the kitchen door, then stepped into the small hall and seemed to look around as if checking for someone listening. When she came back and spoke she didn’t sound like Kassandra at all, her voice low and her eyes restless. “You can’t repeat this to anyone, you hear me?”

  I nodded. What else was I going to do?

  “I had signed up for Miss Fortune’s séance and also for a tarot cards class. Both were on Saturday afternoon. I drove there early because I figured I’d get myself some lunch at the sports bar at the hotel. That’s where everything happens and this being the Christmas Fair, there were some big names. Now, while most of the mediums, astrologers and psychics are women, the big names, the big money attention getters, are usually men. They travel the circuit between Vegas gigs. One of the top Energy Therapists in the nation was in town, and I wanted to meet him without paying the big bucks. That’s why I went to the bar.”

  “I don’t know what an Energy Therapist is. Anyway, did you meet him?”

  “Energy Therapists work to rebalance your energy. That’s the short version. They usually have a medical background and they work with people, mostly women, who have emotional problems like insomnia, overeating, hormonal issues, and no, I didn’t meet him. I did however run into an old friend.” She rubbed her hands as if cleansing them, “I could sure use a drink.”

  “You know we aren’t allowed to drink at the office. So who was the old friend? Miss Fortune?” A phone rang once, twice, it must have gone to voice mail.

  She shook her head. “A ghost from the past.” She smiled. “A man.” Must have been a pleasant ghost.

  “We drank and chatted. He’s a rep for a sports equipment manufacturer. He calls the East Coast home. Married with kids. Meanwhile, the séance I signed up for was over and done and I never showed up for my tarot card class. We couldn’t go to his room with all the cameras and the people who might know him, so we ended up at my place. He left early in the morning to go back to the hotel and make his flight. The end. Or so I thought. The other evening when the detectives came over to talk to me, they stopped by my condo first. One of the astrologers had recognized the drowned woman from the newspaper sketch and called the police. Apparently Miss Fortune was upset I wasn’t at her séance and had been asking if anyone saw me. And, truth be told, there was a message or two from her on my voice mail, but I didn’t check my phone until after my friend left. By then it didn’t matter. She was looking for a place to crash that night. Of course I feel like crap thinking maybe she would be alive if I had offered her shelter.”

  I’m ashamed to confess that my first reaction was, see what happens when you sleep with a married man? And the amber eyes of Tristan Dumont winked in my mind’s eye.

  “After talking to my neighbor, the detectives came to the office, well you know the rest.”

  “Poor Miss Fortune, maybe she wanted to return your bra.”

  Kassandra patted me on the knee. “Okay, complete truth, I was the one who told the detective about the bra. Wait, let me finish. They came in with one of the pamphlets from the fair, the one with the pics and bio of all the presenters. They also had a pic of the... you know, her... after they fished her from the water. I don’t know if it was planned or purely coincidental but they also had a photo of the bra. Stupid me, thinking I was being funny, said, ‘Oh, look at that, you came all the way here to return my bra?’ You can fill in the blanks. They didn’t take my word regarding Miss Fortune. They came to see if they could somehow place her at my condo the night she went missing. Fat chance. I told them to look at the cameras in the complex, and they’d see who I dragged home with me.”

  She put her shoes back on, got up and started to clean up our paper plates. I was stunned.

  “Aren’t you going to finish eating?” Kassandra asked.

  I shook my head. Whoa. I just gobbled up a lifetime’s worth of bad karma... and I knew that in spite of Kassandra’s ‘I’m a badass’ attitude, she felt terribly guilty. I went to hug her; it felt awkward, her being that tall and busty and all. Christmas was just around the corner and we were both as lonely as could be. I could read it in her eyes.

  “I’ve got an idea,” I said. “Tomorrow is Saturday. Can you come over to the house? I need to take the pictures for Christmas cards to send to Italy. Bring your bathing suit.”

  “What? Bathing suit? It’s December. You nuts?”

  “It’s 75 degrees out. It will melt the ice cubes in our drinks. I do this every December. I send photos of myself, lounging by the pool, drinking tall, colorful drinks with little umbrellas to make my family jealous, hoping they’ll decide to come and visit.”

  “You’re a real Italian fruitcake, you know that? What time should I come over?”

  FIVE

  “DO THEY HAVE witches?”

  Kassandra reapplied her bright red lipstick, and examined the straw hat I had handed to her. “Witches? What are you talking about?”

  “You know, the people at the fair? The ones who tell the future.”

  She shook her head, and the hat slid right off her shiny, cinnamon mane. “I don’t know where you get your information but psychics and witches have nothing in common. Aren’t you going to change?”

  “I think I better go get Dior first.” I picked up the reindeer antlers headband I bought on sale at Walgreens. “What do you think? Cute?”

  “You are putting that on the Great Dane? And he’s letting you?”

  “I bribe him.” I shook the bag of organic jerky treats for dogs. “Needs to be done before Brenda gets back. He gets very rambunctious when she’s around, you know, like a teenager.”

  “Is he going to jump in the pool? And splash us?”

  “Kassandra, relax. Danes are afraid of water. Plus I’ve done this before. Let me grab the drinks and get this done. Brenda should be back soon; she promised us brunch.” I pulled the two plastic flutes with the tiny paper umbrellas from the refrigerator.

  “What’s that? Wine?” Kassandra didn’t seem too convinced.

  “It’s jelly.”

  “Huh? Jelly? Fake drinks?”

  “That’s the only way I could figure out how to get the umbrellas to stay put.” We walked to the pool, fake drinks in hand and Dior’s antlers and my Santa’s hat in a plastic bag. All Kassandra did was shake her head. I left her staring at the pool while I ran over to Brenda’s place to get Dior.

  “We’ll need to take turns with the photos.” I explained. “I’ll take yours first, you and Dior on the lounge chairs, then I’ll trade with you.” I removed my shirt to show my bikini so Kassandra didn’t feel naked.

  “Wait, wait,” she said, shocked. “Is that? You have a pierced navel?”

  Kassandra sounded like she’d seen a monster popping out of my belly button. I instinctively covered the small zirconia with my hand. “It’s old. Happened when I first came to America. My first au pair job was in LA and everybody was doing it, the piercing I mean. I wanted to fit in.”

  “Well, you’ll fit right in with the Energy Therapists. They believe that piercing the belly button aligns or improves function of the third chakra.”

  “The third what?”

  She laughed and shook her head fighting off Dior who slobbered over her arms, his way of showing interest. I pulled out my phone, pitched Dior a treat. He leaped for it and voilà, I had a terrific photo.

  “Look.” I passed the phone to Kassandra.

  “Hey, pretty neat. Your relatives will think we’ve been frolicking around all day. Are you going to Photoshop our suntan?” she teased.

  I shrugged, moved the jelly-umbrellas drinks to the side and plopped myself on the chair next to her. “Okay, your turn, hey, Dior, stay away from the gate.”

  Too late, he must have heard Brenda’s engine seconds before I did and was pushing up the lock with
his nose like he had multiple times before. He took off galloping down the driveway, the antlers now hanging around his massive neck like a discarded Christmas wreath. I had to catch him before he hit the street or was run over by Brenda’s Honda Pilot. I lost one of my flip-flops but kept on running.

  I could hear Kassandra calling as I rounded the corner and stopped. Brenda’s vehicle was parked length-wise in front of our shared driveway, which was a good way of blocking Dior I guess. No sight of Brenda but another SUV, black and spiffy, was parked right behind the Honda. I didn’t see anyone, but heard voices, Brenda talking to Dior.

  “What happened to you boy? Okay, okay, I love you too. How did you get out? Wait, what’s around your neck?”

  I knew I only had two options. One, circle the Honda, and explain to Brenda about my harmless Christmas card project — and ask for forgiveness. Or, two, turn around and run back to my place as fast as I could and pretend I knew nothing about anything.

  I checked behind me to see what Kassandra was doing. No one there but my lonely flip flop waiting to be rescued. My so-called friend was probably already in my bathroom getting dressed and rehearsing the innocent expression to use while telling Brenda how I tricked her into putting antlers on Dior. While I weighed my options, Brenda appeared, holding Dior’s collar since I hadn’t put a leash on him, followed close by... nooooo... Tristan Dumont.

  Tristan Dumont! What was he doing here? They both stopped dead, sporting the strangest facial expressions I had ever seen. Dior seized the moment of confusion to get away from Brenda, launching himself onto me with all his enthusiasm and weight. The gazillion pound Great Dane knocked me down, with my nearly bare butt going down for a hard landing on the concrete driveway. That pain in my rear end was nothing compared to the humiliation of having Tristan see me splayed out in my half-naked glory.

  I opened and closed my mouth a few times as the object of my hopeless desires walked over and extended his hand to help me up. Mercy me. I kept my eyes on his boots, his shiny crocodile riding boots, the same ones he wore the first time I bumped into him up at the 40th street trail. City slicker I had nicknamed him then.