The Counseling

by Marley Gibson

Chapter Two

  FOLLOWING THE REQUISITE SAFETY REVIEW, the takeoff, a can of Mr. and Mrs. T's bloody mary mix (sans alcohol, thankyouverymuch), and some mini pretzels, I adjust in seat 11A and try to center my thoughts, to focus on my breathing and not ... dwell on anything. Fortunately, seats 11B and 11C are empty, so once I make a quick run to the potty chamber—after the captain extinguishes the seat-belt sign—I'm going to stretch out and zzz my way into Cali.

  When I get back from the bathroom, though, a man who wasn't there before is sitting in the aisle seat of my row. Maybe he moved after takeoff for more legroom or what have you.

  "Sorry, sir, may I get back in?"

  He doesn't look at me, just stares ahead blankly. He's dressed in nicely pressed khakis and a blue and white thin-striped button-down, like he's going to a trade show or it's business-casual Friday for him. Where was he sitting before? I wonder.

  The flight attendant stops in front of me. "You may want to take your seat. The captain says we're going to have some choppy air up ahead."

  "Sure thing," I say, not wanting to go against her authority. "Just waiting for him to let me pass into the row."

  The woman looks at the adjoining seats and then back at me. "You're waiting for who?"

  I glance at him.

  I glance at her.

  It all clicks.

  My ears ring and my heart rate picks up. Not so soon...

  My psychic headache begins to tick away at my right temple and I realize that the dressed-for-work man in 11C is ... not a ticketed passenger. At least, not on this flight.

  He's a ghost.

  With that, the man twists his head up and winks at me.

  Sigh. Here I go again...

  I shake my head at the flight attendant. "Sorry, I'll take my seat."

  She smiles warmly, but I can read her thoughts, and she thinks I'm a silly teenager. I wish it were merely that. Right now, there's a spirit who's in need of my attention whether I want to give it to him or not. These damn ghosts will follow me anywhere, won't they?

  Taking a bold step, I walk straight through the man in 11C like he's a wispy cloud and sit down. "Hey," I say softly without peeking over at him.

  "This flight is taking forever," he says to me. "Do you know what time we're going to land?"

  "Where are you going?" I ask.

  He glances at his watch. "I've got to get to the West Coast office. A new server's going in and they're expecting me."

  I breathe in, picking up his energies, which are crackling around me like fireflies on a July night. Information is tossed at me like beanbags, and I mentally try to catch all I can and sort it out as the headache pings away above my right eye. This guy works in tech support for a company with bicoastal offices. He's from ... Lawrenceville, Georgia. Other images flash before me. "Is your name ... Richard?" I ask, because I see the image of President Nixon in my head for some reason. Don't ask me to explain how my psychic images work. They just do.

  "Richard Newman. I go by Richie," the man says.

  "Kendall," I say in a whisper even though we could carry on this conversation without words. "Nice to meet you." When he extends his hand, I politely lift mine, although there's no physical contact between us. I watch as his fingers blend into mine, disappearing into my skin with his attempt to grip and shake. This doesn't seem to faze him.

  "Do you know what happened to you?" I press.

  "What do you mean?"

  I scrunch up my face. "Like, why you're here?"

  He stares at me blankly, unknowingly. Possibly perplexed.

  His dark hair is short and spiked and his face shows his confusion over the situation. "I left early for the airport and caught my flight to Oakland. I don't understand why we're not there yet. The captain hasn't said anything about a delay and I can't get any of the flight attendants to answer my call button. I'm going to get my ass chewed if I don't get to the office."

  Poor guy doesn't even know he's passed.

  Concentrating on the spirit next to me, I continue to breathe in deeply and open myself up to the energies all around. I reach my hand over to where he's sitting and I fan my fingers about to connect with him the best I can. Now, without speaking, our minds bond and he shows me his last day.

  Richie took MARTA from his house in Lawrenceville to the Atlanta airport a week ago and hopped this exact plane to take him to Oakland, California. Following drink service and a perusal of a story about the High-Stickin' Chickens' (my name for the Atlanta Thrashers hockey team) victory over my Chicago Blackhawks (damnit!), Richie got up to go to the restroom and suddenly felt an intense pain. I feel it now myself, searing across my middle.

  "Your stomach hurt, didn't it?"

  "Yeah, how did you know?" he asks with surprise in his eyes.

  "I just do. It's sort of ... my thing."

  "It was an awful cramp," he says. "I'm fine now, but it hurt like hell for a while. I thought it was just my thirty-five-year-old body reacting to the weekend's softball game. Man, we got our asses kicked."

  I laugh softly. "What happened in the game?"

  Richie shares the memory with me. "I was on first and Arredondo was at bat. Hit the hell out of it to clean the bases. I rounded third and felt the ball coming back in, so I kicked in the afterburners and slid. Got a raspberry on my thigh to end all bruises. And I remember feeling like I tore a muscle in my stomach or something. Dude tagged me out, so I was more pissed off about that."

  I inhale deeply and stretch my hands out again, trying to connect with this spirit as much as I can. In my mind's eye, I see nothing but blood. Seeping. Slowly. Internal damage unknown to the man himself. Slumping in my seat, I ponder how to approach this, especially since he doesn't realize he's passed.

  But Richie turns to me. "It was more, though, wasn't it?"

  I smile feebly at him, but it becomes a frown because I can see ever so clearly what happened. This is what being a psychic/empath is all about. I want to cry at being the one who has to tell this guy that he's, like, dead. All part of the burden of my so-called gift.

  "Richie," I say out loud. "I have something to tell you." Then I reach my hand across the empty seat between us, as if that's going to add any comfort. "You tore your abdominal muscle and it went unattended. You were slowly bleeding to death and didn't even know it until you collapsed. Right here on this very plane. Another passenger knew CPR and tried to revive you as the pilot made an emergency landing in Dallas."

  I watch a crawling acceptance come across Richie's tan face. "Man, that sucks."

  "Yeah, it does."

  Richie stares ahead at the seat in front of him, his jaw slack in disbelief. It's best that I leave him alone until he wants to talk further. He needs time for this to soak in. About fifteen minutes later for me—perhaps a lifetime or a nanosecond for him—Richie turns. "I can't be dead," he says. "I just got paid. I've got a mortgage, and I'm getting married in a few months."

  He puts his head in his hands and runs his fingers through his short-cropped hair. A young woman with a bright smile comes into my vision. Her high ponytail swings left and right as she laughs at something Richie said to her. Her name is Lindsey. The sparkle on her left hand tells me that she's the one he intended to marry. Tears well up behind my eyes as I think of his fiancée moving on without him. Now I need to help him move on.

  Sitting back, he lets out a frustrated sigh. "I remember now. All of it. I knew I was dying. I didn't make it to the hospital, did I?"

  I bite down on my bottom lip and try to tune in to the residual energy left here on this aircraft. "I believe the man who helped you revived you enough to get you off the plane and to the hospital. But you never woke up there."

  "Damn. That totally sucks."

  Acceptance seems to wash over him like a gentle breeze.

  "You know you can't, like, stay on this plane forever, right?"

  Richie slowly nods his head and then sits up.

  "Have you seen the light, Richie?"

  He nods again.
"It's been around for a while. I just didn't know what it was."

  "Do you see it now? Where is it?"

  Richie points forward. "Up there. How do I, umm, you know, go to it?"

  "You just do," I tell him. "Focus on it and let it absorb you."

  "Just like that?"

  I smile weakly. "Just like that."

  "What about my girl?" he asks. "She has to know how much I loved her. How much I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. Have babies. Get a dog and a cat. All the stuff you're supposed to do. I've also got her wedding gift stashed in the attic of the house. It's a black pearl necklace I got off eBay from the family of a World War Two veteran who picked it up in Japan in the 1940s. Lindsey loves pearls, and these are the most gorgeous ones ever."

  My heart almost stops for a moment over the love I sense from Richie for his fiancée. "Wow. That's an amazing gift that doesn't need to be lost." I gulp the emotional knob in my throat. I don't want to ask this question, but it's what I have to do. What I've done so many times. "Is there anything I can do?"

  He looks around and lets out a long sigh. "Can you tell her about the necklace?"

  "I-I-I guess I can." What? Walk up to her house, knock on the door, and relate this tête-à-tête to her?

  "Yeah, exactly," he says with a smile, obviously hearing my thoughts. "And tell her something else for me, would you?"

  Reluctantly, I nab my small notebook from my purse and make a few notes of what Richie wants me to tell Lindsey. I write down her address in Lawrenceville and her work information and all of the love-inspired things Richie tells me. He stops talking and relays the special message of ultimate love for his fiancée. Hot tears jet from my eyes as my heart throbs for Richie and Lindsey's loss. I write down his exact words, wondering how in the world I can convey them to the grieving woman with the same emotional impact as Richie.

  "You'll make sure you get all of this to her?" he implores.

  "I will," I say out loud, not knowing how or when I'll make it to her house or if this poor mourning woman will slam the door in my face and tell me to get lost. I wipe the tears from my eyes, hoping my makeup isn't streaked and running down my cheeks. "I'll do my best."

  He winks at me again. "You're a good kid, Kendall. Don't forget that."

  Richie stands, walks down the aisle of the plane, and ... disappears. I gasp at what I witness. It never fails to stir my emotions when a ghost moves into the light and becomes a free spirit. Three more salty tears escape my eyes and I push them aside into my hair. I also let a sigh of relief leave my lungs in a pent-up breath. Worry coats me in an unfashionable garb. If only all of the spirits I connect with could be as amenable and affable as Richie. But there are bad elements out there. Entities that are bitter and hateful ... and hurtful. Those are the ones I can't deal with anymore. How can I know, though, going into it? I hope Oliver Bates and his counselors have an answer for me on how to live my life moving forward. Being psychic is the hand of cards I've been dealt and I have to deal with it. Bad card pun aside.

  I let out another long sigh and then I feel a set of eyes on me. The older man across the aisle is glaring at me like I'm a complete idiot. His harsh, overgrown brows are knitted together and he presses his lips into a grimace.

  "Young lady, is there something wrong with you?" he asks, obviously referring to my convo with no one that he could see.

  "Mister," I say with my mouth hitched to the side, "you have no idea."

  When my plane touches down in Fresno, I have my emotions in check. At least for the moment. The two-hour crash nap—shouldn't really say crash when I'm on an airplane—did me a world of good. I stretch my limbs, rub my eyes, and sit up straight as I wait to deplane. California. West Coast. A different environment. My spring break has officially begun; here I go. The attention now is on this retreat and rediscovering who Kendall Moorehead is and who she needs to be.

  Ack ... why am I referring to myself in the third person?

  Following a quick potty stop and a call home to let them know I landed safely, I dash through the terminal to baggage claim to get my gray Kenneth Cole bag off the belt. As the conglomeration of suitcases passes by, I take a quick glance through the itinerary I printed from my confirmation e-mail for the retreat. According to the info, a sedan will be picking me up outside of baggage claim and driving me to the Rose Briar Inn. It sounds so lovely and peaceful.

  With an adroit heft of my exactly-fifty-pound bag, I pull the handle, drag the rolly beast behind me, and search for the exit for ground transportation. I wonder if the sedan driver will be holding a sign that reads KENDALL MOOREHEAD. How cool would that be? Like I'm some sort of celebrity showing up for a reality show or—

  Oooph!

  What the...?

  I nearly bust my ass in the middle of the airport but catch myself on my hands before I hit the ground. Phew! I look under me and see that I've fallen over a guitar case that's been left in the walkway. What kind of idiot leaves a guitar out where people can trip over it? The black case is covered in stickers from several cities that the owner must have traveled to, as well as indications of his or her taste in music. I see decals for the Beatles, Rolling Stones, the Doors, Jimmy Buffett, Hall and Oates, Bon Jovi, and Nine Inch Nails. Man, this person is old school when it comes to music.

  "Watch where you're going, okay?"

  My head snaps up and I snarl, "I wouldn't have to watch where I'm going if you hadn't left your guitar in the middle of the freakin' floor!"

  The guy just sits there. A knit cap is over his hair and headphones encircle his neck. His eyes are covered by dark sunglasses and I can't make out any touch of emotion on his face. I get up and my mental fingers stretch to connect with whatever this guy's glitch is, but he's completely unreadable to me. It's like my radar is blocked.

  He shifts his long, baggy-jeaned legs and puts his headphones back in place, mumbling something under his breath.

  "Excuse me?"

  "I said, the guitar is personally autographed and a collector's item."

  Hands on hips, I cop a 'tude back at him. "Then take better care of it."Jackass. With that, I turn and walk off.

  The sound of the case shuffling against the floor touches my ears, but I also hear him say "Nice language" in a snarky tone. "You kiss your mother with that mouth?" he calls.

  OMG! He totally heard that? I said it in my head! How did he catch it? Yikes! I put the pedal to the metal and power out of the baggage area, away from him and my wicked embarrassment. Making one last turn, I see him delve into a Popular Mechanics magazine as if I were never there.

  There's something familiar about him ... only ... not. Must be my psychic energies suffering from jet lag.

  I burst into the bright California sunshine and search for the sedan or a sign with my name on it. Thank God I'll never have to run into Mr. Attitude ever again.

  Chapter Three

  A TALL ITALIAN-LOOKING MAN in a finely tailored suit stands outside of a shiny black limo holding a sign that reads MOOREHEAD.

  "Is this seriously for me?" I squeak out. I've never ridden in a limo in my life!

  "You are Miss Moorehead?"

  Trying to make light of it all, I say, "The one and only."

  He drops the sign to the hood of the car and swiftly moves to take my suitcase from me. I let him tug it out of my hand; my Spidey senses tell me he's not some vagrant posing in a designer suit just to steal my week's worth of clothing and vitamins.

  "Welcome to California. I am Sergio and I am here to drive you to the Rose Briar Inn." He grabs the handle of the limo's rear door, opens it, and waves his hand as if to present the limo to me. I poke my head inside and then slip into the seat.

  Whoa. Someone pinch me 'cause I think I'm dreaming.

  From the looks of this luxury whip, Oliver Bates knows how to pamper his guests, that's for sure. This retreat must have set Mom and Dad back a pretty penny, with amenities like this.

  Sergio closes the door behind me and I hear him stashi
ng my bag in the trunk. I let out a long whistle as I take in my surroundings. Not exactly Mom's twelve-year-old Volvo. The leather interior smells earthy and expensive. I squiggle my butt around to get comfortable and relax into the cushion. A plush red carpet spreads out under my feet. To the left, the bench seat curves around, enough room to hold at least ten people. On the right is a wet bar and a small television. A silver bucket of ice holds designer-label bottles of water; a crystal glass is poised on each side. Next to that is a ginormous basket with apples, grapes, oranges, and granola bars of all flavors.

  Sergio rolls down the dividing window between the two of us and flashes a perfectly capped white grin at me. "Are you ready to go now, Miss Moorehead?"

  "Umm, sure."

  Are you kidding me? I get this limo all to myself? Celia's never going to believe this. I snap a few pics with my cell phone camera just to prove it to her later.

  Before I know it, we're maneuvering out of the airport and buzzing up Route 41. Traffic is remarkably light—considering all the horror stories you hear about California highways—so I stretch my legs out and take in the scenery of Fresno that's flying by outside the tinted windows.

  The TV blinks awake and I see Oliver Bates from Ethereal Evidence smiling at me. "Welcome to the Enlightened Youth Retreat," he says. "I'm Oliver Bates, your host for the next week. I'm a psychic/medium/sensitive and I'm here to teach you all I know about your higher self and being in touch with the earth elements and the powers you can harness from the metaphysical realm." He continues on to discuss the itinerary for the week ahead, but I sort of tune out as I stare at the screen. Oliver has sunglasses perched on dark brown hair, and his nearly black eyes shine. His hand reaches up to twist his jet-black mustache, much like he does on TV when he's getting the psychic messages from beyond that help him assist police with cold-case homicides and finding missing persons. I can't believe I'm actually going to meet him. I've never met anyone famous before. Unless you count the time that I saw Michael Jordan going into the Chicago Tribune Tower on Michigan Avenue when I was eight years old.

  As Oliver continues his welcoming video, I reach over and pour myself a sparkly-dancing glass of San Pellegrino and take a long, enjoyable sip as we speed toward my destination.