by Jody Sharpe
I go back in, lock the door, and turn out the light in the parlor. But before I head upstairs, I sit on the couch looking out the window. King jumps up and I hug him. Tears fall down my cheeks like the raindrops on the windowpane, but King’s furry neck dries them away.
14
The Sweetest Of Days
Like a wave of magic, dawn has broken with disappearing grey purple clouds. A line of white blue sky gives way to the golden sun opening up morning’s beauty. The birdsong seems louder. My Bishop pine and all of nature’s gifts drink in yesterday’s rain. I breathe in the clean smell, touching the bark, feeling and hearing the rhythm. The birdsong makes me say to King, “Happy as a lark, I guess, is the expression.” Are larks happy? Do all our animal friends and God’s nature feel innate happiness? The golden bee lights on a nearby rose bush. I walk slowly to it. Wish I had a magnifying glass. Its wings are feathery, unlike any I’ve seen, so beautiful, almost angelic. Am I really seeing this?
Taking my cell phone from my pocket, I send a photo of the bee to Noah. I’ll have to ask him about the book he talked about logging all the bees in the world. Now he can send this to his father’s friend, the entomologist he mentioned. And what about Noah? His text this morning sounded cheery, “Jogging early. Much to do before I leave. Lunch today Next Door Café 12 to make up to you for my mood? Love, N.”
Of course I text back “Yes c u then!” I want to apologize for my insensitivity. It feels good deciding to be totally transparent about what’s happening. I’m going to tell him about the trees, about seeing a starry light in the eyes of Taylor, July, January, Gabe, Josh and Hannah…Angel light? That’s what their eyes look like, like the angel’s eyes in the dream that brought me home. Lord knows Gram and GG have enough to worry about, but I should tell them too. Why am I keeping this to myself? I’m afraid I’m hallucinating. Or am I afraid of the psychic abilities coming on strong?
Mr. Beasley is waiting for me, it seems. He’s bundled in a heavier jacket today as the rain brought a cooler breeze. King’s breath fogs the air. Mr. B, as I decide to call him, now waves me over to sit on the bench by him. I comply.
“Thanks so much, Mr. B, for coming over at the restaurant. I’m sorry if I embarrassed you in front of my ex-boyfriend. It’s a long, pathetic story.” Mr. B pets King who looks up adoringly.
“Don’t like seeing you unhappy, Maggie. Everything all right now?”
“I’m fine. You hardly know me, yet you came to my aid. You’re so nice. Can I call you Mr. B?”
Mr. B smiles. “Of course!” His sunny disposition catches the sunlight. The sun is shining bright and the air suddenly is warmer. I can see seagulls in the sky in his yellow-red wire rimmed glasses. “Mr. B, where do you live?” He pats King and King gives him his paw.
“Not far from here, down by the pier. I so love this town, Maggie. I’ve got to go but wanted to see you this morning to see if you were okay. You and King take care of each other and have a good day. I’ll see you tomorrow, weather permitting.” He gets up to leave, but I touch his coat.
“Wait. Um, would you come by for tea one day to meet my great grandmother, Madam Norma and my Gram, Miss Marilyn? We live up Moon Road, Madam Norma’s Parlor. My Great Grandmother, GG is the oldest psychic in town and my Gram is a wonderful clairvoyant. I’d love for you to meet them sometime.”
“Yes, I’d love that. You are fortunate Maggie. You have people who love you. That’s what life’s about, isn’t it?” Not waiting for an answer, Mr. B says, “Someday you have to call me Neal.” He tips his hat and moves on, whistling a tune. I want to stop him and tell him about the angel sightings; about that song Bless the Beasts and the Children I’m going to sing a week from Sunday. King and I sit and watch him walk as far down Beach Road as we can until he turns down Sea Scallop Road. Seagulls soar above us; my hair blows free in the slight but cool wind. The smell of the sea and the mild day make me say out loud, “the sweetest of days.” With the sounds of lapping waves I can’t hear the trees, but I will as soon as we walk up the alley. I start to hum the song for the angels. King looks at me and places his head on my lap. I watch joggers and walkers moving with freedom next to the shimmering sea. Just like the trees, I hum. Angels are calling me; Noah and I are having lunch today. How sweet life is. I put Brian’s words to the back of my mind. Today will be a good day. It’s time to walk towards home and the trees will welcome us as always. Do angels hear the hum and join in?…How I wish I could hear the angels sing.
Laurjean sashays like always round the tables with coffee pot in one hand and iced tea pitcher in the other. The café is packed as usual on a Sunday and most patrons are having breakfast. Sunshine Pancakes are flying off Donnie’s griddle. People I know call hello. Noah sits waiting for me by the window. He’s so utterly handsome; I take in a shallow breath. His hair is swept to one side and, unbelievably, he seems to have his amber eyes only for me! “ Maggie, my joy,” he says kissing me lightly and touching my hair. I’ve combed it out long today. “You’re so beautiful.”
“You too,” I say, meaning it. Noah laughs. “No ones ever said that, but thanks.”
Chris, Laurjean’s cute older son, takes our order of the famous pancakes and I take a sip of my coffee, feeling at ease. Chris’s eyes have that sparkle in them like the others at the meeting. I shake my head. Wow, this is bizarre. Am I becoming as psychic as Noah?
“I want to apologize,” Noah says, taking my hand. “I was pretty emotional last night. I really don’t want to leave again tomorrow morning for book signings. I don’t want to leave Dad or you but I have to. There’s something else I need to tell you.” He has that sad smile again.
“Noah, I’m the one who should apologize. You must think me selfish not wanting to know what Brian found out. Do you think I should? I’m afraid to look, don’t want to think about it now. I’d rather think about the angels appearing and about being with you.” Oh, God, why did I say that? But Noah takes both my hands in his. “I’m sorry I interrupted you again.”
“You are amazing. And I don’t find fault with you at all. Look, I thought long about the envelope last night. If and when you want me to look at it all for you, I will. I’ll research it for you. It would make me happy to help you. Months, years down the line, whenever you decide…I’ll help, okay?”
“You’re so great? Thank you.”
I sense there’s something he wants to tell me. What is it? Something has hurt him deeply. He pulls out a small envelope from his briefcase. Looking around to see if anyone is watching us, he hands it to me.
Seeing that it’s postmarked from Mystic Bay thirty years ago, my heart begins to race. I take the letter out of the envelope, looking at his eyes. He nods as if to say, go ahead, read it.
As I read the words, my heart breaks. Noah’s biological mother is from here, Mystic Bay. She’s saying she’s sorry. She’ll always love him. Is she implying Noah’s dad, Marshall, is actually his biological father? His father had an affair and then adopted baby Noah? Could Marshall have kept this from him all these years? But why? Did Josephine, his mother, know about this? “Noah?”
“I need you to help me, Maggie.” From his briefcase he hands me, One Psychic Summer, the first in the Connor Diamond series. On the cover, written in gold, is the title, a blue image of the beach and a seaside town in the distance. In white lettering at the bottom…by Marshall Greenstreet, a novel. “Will you read this for me and try to figure out who Sahara is, the heroine in the book? The names have been changed. of course. You can ask your Gram and GG to help if you can’t figure it out. It came to me last night that you will be the one to find my mother. Could you interview the ladies you think are in the book on the premise that you’re doing research for me for an article I’m writing about my father’s life? You can explain his illness; tell them you’re my assistant. You will know her, my psychic sense tells me. You will find my mother, you’ll see it in her eyes.”
15
One Psychic Summer
“While Noah
was gone, I read the novel in only three days, late into the early mornings. It began the thirty-year run immortalizing the semi-disheveled hippy-type character endearing to Marshall’s readers. Using his intuition and low-key manner, Connor solves the first in the series set in the fictitious town of Sandy-By-The-Sea, California. The town notes the nickname on the sign across the road as you enter the town…Welcome to Psychicville, the town’s sign says underneath. A good man, and pillar of the community, has gone missing. Connor Diamond, a fresh out of college hippy drifts into town and offers to solve the case. Even the first Chapter made me wish the book would never end.
Connor Diamond walks into the little fifties diner named Vicky V’s. It smells like bacon and eggs. He’s starving for a bacon and egg breakfast even though he tried like hell a year ago to cleanse with a macrobiotic type diet. It didn’t work; he loves greasy spoon food too damn much. It feeds the soul, he thinks. A pretty, short blonde behind the counter says, “Come on in. Coffee’s always on us.” Connor likes her right away. Although he’d prefer to drink a nice tea if possible, he doesn’t mention it. A mafia type looking guy in a policeman’s uniform turns around. Dark curly hair, rugged complexion, but radiating a kind demeanor he says, “Just visiting?”
Connor Diamond is a little intimidated at first because of the policeman’s stature and besides it says ‘Chief of Police’ on the black and white police car parked outside. Connor is embarrassed and smoothes his rumpled clothes. On his drive across country, he’s been sleeping in his car mostly and showering every few days at little cheap motels. He answers, “Just passing through. Want to get to Washington state. It’s taken me a month. You know, seeing the country.”
“Chief of Police Barney Freed,” the Chief says, offering his hand to Connor. They shake hands. The grip is firm and strong.
“Connor Diamond. Looking for work to get my next tank of gas filled and then up to those redwoods…always wanted to see ‘em. Then onward I go, north then. I don’t know where to next.”
Barney Freed gestures for him to sit on the red padded chrome stool next to him and he does.
“Man, that sounds fun, traveling the country in your car for a month, but I’m hitched to Vicky here and I’d sure miss this pretty woman.”
“Vicky Freed,” the cute perky waitress says, holding her hand out. “And we own this place. We have the best food in town…no need to go anywhere else, Connor. Listen, I know what you could do, stick around. You could help solve the local mystery that’s got my good-lookin’ hubby here on edge. His best friend went missing two months now and no leads, nothing. Why, he’s lost ten pounds worrying. Even the FBI snubbed us, said Rich just left his wife and kid and took off. Would you like to do a little detective work for us? People in this town are scared to talk to Barney about what happened to Rich Stapleton. They’re afraid of his witch of a wife, Tessa. She really is a witch and runs their drug store now and I think even my macho husband here’s a little afraid of her too, but I’m not, not one little iota.”
“Take it easy, Vicky. Connor’s just passin’ through, not a detective, so let’s not bother him, okay? Nice meeting ya though.” Barney sighs, gets off his stool, sweetly kisses Vicky across the counter, and takes the last gulp of his coffee.
“I’d like to help,” begins Connor. “I’ll help you for sure if you might give me a place to stay and a job.” Barney and Vicky look at each other and Connor continues, “ You see, I know what I look like to you, just a hippy, but I’m smart and intuitive. I can solve TV crime shows and mysteries in books every time. I’d like the challenge. When I drove into town, the sign read Sandy-By-The-Sea Welcome to Psychicvile. I assume that means there are some psychics around town. I say that cause my Grandma Donna Diamond, who’s one wise psychic lady says it’s been passed down to me and I need to use it. I’m well, a touch of a psychic myself.”
Reading chapter after chapter of the affable unlikely gumshoe, Connor Diamond, got me hooked. Connor, the young sleuth manipulates the town’s timid folks, psychic and not, for information on Rich Stapleton and his non-adoring black-eyed mate, Tessa. He surmises after the first two chapters that foul play is involved, especially after talking to the townsfolk coming in for breakfast, lunch, or just coffee and a donut at the counter. Loveable characters all, they open up to Connor who’s learned to be a short order cook, and make eggs and bacon to sheer perfection, thanks to Vicky. He has plenty to eat now and a place to sleep and a shower in the back of the diner. He just asks folks that come in, “Hey, anything exciting ever go on in this place? Hey, I hear Rich Stapleton disappeared. Wow, that’s too bad. He owned Big Rich’s Drug Store right?”
Engaged in the story, I found Connor grows to like the town. He decides he may never want to leave its shiny coastline with spectacular views. Yet, he’s had an epiphany. He now knows his calling; he’s a psychic detective and no one is going to talk him out of his newfound profession. So he writes down the information about Tessa and Rich from whomever he’s talked to that day. He places the information on the rickety table next to his cot and, like a game of Concentration, he turns the pieces of paper over and over, solving the puzzle of Rich’s disappearance. Tessa’s one mean woman, that’s for sure. She’s gotten rid of Rich Stapleton, but where is he? Connor’s not sure.yet. And so the story’s mystery unfolds.
It’s the characters that intrigue me. I’m positive he’s put GG in as Rita-Juanita, the town’s wisest psychic and her daughter, Karla, a clairvoyant, the spitting psychic ways of my grandmother. Rita-Juanita and Karla surmise Rich Stapleton is indeed alive; they sense it but don’t know where he is. The evil wife, Tessa, is too dangerous to discuss. Rita-Juanita told him, “She is powerful and people fear the squint that comes into her black eyes. We all turn away, Connor, we have too. We are, every one of us, intuitive enough to know we can’t mess with her.” But the two psychics feel sure Rich is somewhere under duress.
Even though he’s changed some characters’ appearances, Mayor Willie Walin appears in perfect personality as Mayor Dave Mosky, the Palmist. He read Rich’s palm years ago. He concurs Rich is alive as he was meant to have a long happy life. But it’s the beautiful heroine in the story that’s got me psyched, hoping to find the answer for Noah. She’s the one Connor falls for, Sahara Rios, the Latin beauty. Which one of the Mystic Bay psychic beauties from thirty years ago captivated Connor Diamond, aka, Marshall Greenstreet’s heart as he interviewed her for his first novel? He must have fallen in love with the young woman he interviewed and characterized in the story. Has fiction imitated real life? I know it has.
Another chapter of One Psychic Summer…
“Her dark hair like midnight reflects bright flecks of star shine. Connor watches the young Latin psychic, Sahara, move, almost floating across her tiny apartment near Main Street. She tells Connor he needs to look in a wooded place. He will find Rich Stapleton there. She doesn’t know where though, or how far away. No more clues. That’s all. “Please find him, Connor.“ She loves Rich, she says; she’s always loved him. It was torture watching this man she adored marry mean Tessa and have a child. Tears fall down her perfect cheeks. “I don’t know which direction to send you. I just know he is alive, Connor. I try to send him messages with my brain, but Rich isn’t psychic. I’ve loved him since I was a girl and he was working at the drug store. When I was sixteen. I told him I loved him one day. But he just smiled that handsome smile and told me, “Now Sahara, you’re young. You go and find yourself a nice boy from school, okay?”
“Mr. Nice Guy, as everyone called him affectionately, didn’t get it. He thought I had a teenage crush, but I didn’t. I loved him, couldn’t he see that? Why was he with that witch, Tessa? Probably because his father, Big Rich, owned the drug store and took Tessa in when she came to town with a heart-wrenching, made-up sob-story about her sorry life. Everyone in town, but Big Rich, who didn’t have any psychic awareness, knew she was a manipulative liar, but no one wanted to interfere. Big Rich gave her a job, moved her into their house,
and encouraged Rich to take care of her. The rumor was, Young Rich was bewitched. She put some concoction in his drink like Love Potion Number Nine but its’ effects went away fast; even before their son Jake arrived. Then, unfortunately, the old man died suddenly and Rich had to take over everything. He was just out of college and yet he managed the drug store so well, I’m sure his father is proud as he watches from heaven. Rich was kind to me, to everyone. Through the years I kept him in my heart and one day about six months ago, I saw him on the beach walking his dog. We were alone, no one in sight. We strolled awhile with our dogs and we starting meeting to walk together. It just happened; we fell in love. It was easy, the real love we found, and one day he didn’t fight it. He was miserable with Tessa, he said. She was cruel to their son and he had to leave her, get the poor boy out of harm’s way. He had to find the courage. The day he promised he would tell her it was over was the last time I saw him. The next day he was gone. But I was afraid, Connor, afraid to tell a soul, even Barney, our good Chief of Police. Afraid she knew about me and she would come for me next. I had this overwhelming feeling someone would come to help me, and here you are, Connor! You will help me find him, won’t you?”
Connor felt her arms around him, clinging, sobbing. He wished he would never have to let her go.
As I read I wondered which of the young psychic women could it be that Marshall Greenstreet interviewed years ago and had a love affair with, producing a son? Which one was Sahara? I picture the intuitive women I know who are fiftyish or just barely fifty now, old enough to be Noah’s mother. In the novel is Sahara, Sharon Manuel, the tall dark-haired beauty, the minister’s wife? She’s so quiet and yet a gifted medium, so centered on caring for the children she babysits. Carlos and Sharon have twin teenage girls and seem happily married. Or could it be Alma Walin, the Mayor Willie’s lovely wife and mother of Andy who does Reiki and healing? Or Tina Beaujolais, Tarot card reader, Jason’s mom, still with Phil Doherty after years, having a son together but never marrying? All three psychics are beauties with kind natures. Marshall Greenstreets descriptions don’t match except for Sharon’s Latin beauty. Is that too obvious? Are there other psychics in the town I can’t think of? Maybe the woman, the inspiration for the character Sahara, has moved away. It’s been thirty years since she posted that letter. How will I find Noah’s mother? First, I’ll set up interviews with each of these three women. No, I’ll catch them each off guard. If that doesn’t work, I’ll go to GG and Gram for help. Maybe they psychically know the answer already. Maybe they’ve always known.