Mesmerized

by Ward, Alice

  Just when I was about to turn back, one of the doors swung open. Standing there before me was Madam Adam, and he was dressed to the nines. As a cross-dresser, I had never in my life seen him in a pair of jeans or a flannel shirt like most of the men around our small town. In fact, I was pretty sure I’d never even seen him in pants. The first day I met him when I went into Auras to apply for a job, he’d been wearing a sequined dress more suited to clubbing than shopkeeping and a pair of fishnet stockings I was pretty sure wouldn’t have looked good on a woman half his size.

  Today, he was in full gypsy getup. His doughy torso was adorned in a cinched blouse, and a patchwork-style peasant skirt flowed around his ankles. The mandala-patterned scarf he’d wrapped around his bald head lifted at the ends as it caught the breeze from the doorway. There were so many bangles on his arms that they were smashed tightly together and didn’t make a noise as he moved. The beaded hoops in his ears, however, were swinging and swaying gaily.

  “Liebchen!” he exclaimed in delight, throwing his arms out and pulling me into him. My cheek pressed against his dramatic turquoise necklace. “I was wondering if you’d forgotten your old friend Madam Adam!”

  “Who could forget somebody like you?” I was only partially teasing. He was extremely memorable.

  “You look wonderful.” He took me by the shoulders and shoved me away from him, still holding me, to take a look at my body from head to toe. “I swear, every time I see you, there’s something even prettier about you.”

  I smiled, faintly embarrassed by the praise, and shook my head. “Or maybe we just don’t see each other enough, so every time you see me you’ve forgotten what I look like.”

  “You’re a gem, doll. Nobody could forget that lovely face.”

  He held my hand and yanked me into the house, making sure to close the door behind us. It shut with a bang like a cannon, and I winced at its volume.

  “I’d call for Edward to come say hello, but I’m afraid he’s out with the dogs.” Madam Adam wrinkled his bulbous nose. “I don’t know what he sees in those things. Filthy, hairy creatures, if you ask me. And, do you know, he’s decided he wants another one? A Chinese crester, or something like that.”

  “Chinese crested,” I corrected. The only thing I knew about as much as crystals and jewelry-making was dogs. I would’ve had at least one myself, if not for my tiny second-story apartment.

  He beamed. “Yes, you’ve always been a dog lover too, haven’t you, love?”

  I nodded.

  He hooked one of his bangled arms around my shoulders, and we started walking side by side into the parlor. It was my favorite room in the house, done up in a contemporary style with a Caribbean flair that was wholly unfitting to the classic style of the house itself, and I’d tried to emulate it with the little space I had of my own. “So, dearest, what’s troubling you?”

  “Why do you think something’s troubling me?”

  He dropped his eyebrows and pointed to his headscarf. “You don’t think I dress like this for fun, now, do you?”

  A smile played at my lips. “Yes.”

  “Oh, you do know me well, don’t you?” He knocked his temple against mine, and I laughed. “Let’s not play coy, though. Your aura is murky, and your chakras are completely out of whack. What’s going on? Is it the Pennington’s business?”

  “How did you know about that?”

  We sank onto a teal tufted couch, and he unwound his arm from my neck to instead rest his hand on my knee. “I might have a husband and a house and more dogs than anyone should want, but I’m not entirely out of the loop. This is a small town without much for gossip. Although, I must admit, Edward and I went to Aruba a couple weeks ago, and I haven’t been caught up since we’ve gotten back.”

  Edward was Madam Adam’s husband of three years, an investor from the East Coast with an excellent fashion sense and a penchant for salsa dancing. He was sophisticated, mild-mannered, and highly educated — virtually the opposite of Madam Adam. I vividly remembered the day the two met because Madam Adam scribbled down his prediction on a scrap piece of paper that the two were destined to be married, and he’d ordered me to hold on to it for him.

  Six months later, I stood up at their wedding and read that prediction for everyone to hear. Within the year, I was a business owner, and Madam Adam was traveling the world with his Mr. Right.

  “So, you haven’t heard that Pennington’s filed for their building permits?”

  “No.” His starry eyes widened. “Did you sell the store?”

  “I haven’t even verbally agreed to sell, let alone agreed with a signature.” My lips turned downward, as if the weight of everything couldn’t hold them up any longer. “They just went ahead and did it.”

  He sighed and fiddled with one of his many bracelets. “I hate to say it, sugar, but you’re just the baby David to their beastly Goliath. I’m not sure this looks good for you.”

  I tilted my head. “Didn’t David slay Goliath?”

  “It was a metaphor.” He waved a hand brusquely. “Anyway, I’ve been divining on the issue of the corporation since I heard about it months ago, and I always get mixed answers. Maybe now that you’re here, we’ll finally clear it up. That’s why you came, right? For some spiritual insight?”

  “And because I missed you.” I squeezed his hand. It wasn’t a lie. Madam Adam was someone I considered a true, albeit eccentric, friend, and we didn’t see enough of each other anymore.

  He patted my hand and got to his feet again, skirt swishing. “To the altar room, then, love.”

  We traipsed through several rooms larger than my entire apartment and store combined until we reached a door at the rear of the house. As soon as he opened the door, I was punched in the face by the thick scent of patchouli. It was more staggering than all the aromas Auras carried put together.

  He ushered me into the room and closed the door behind me, then guided me to the square, unfettered table in the very center. I dropped onto one of the two opposite-facing chairs, taking the moment it took him to sit on the other to look out the French colonial windows at the glittering water outside. It, of course, made me think of being on the sailboat with Cash, and my cheeks warmed.

  “What can I do for you, my dear?” He folded his arms, one over the other. “Crystal ball gazing? Palmistry? I could break out my runes. I haven’t used them in a while.”

  “I’d like you to do a tarot reading.”

  He raised a manicured brow. “So simple, my love. Surely, you’ve conducted readings of your own for guidance?”

  “Yes, but I keep getting mixed messages, and I think my bias is ruining my results.” I gave him a pleading look. “So, I thought I’d ask you to read for me. Blind.”

  His lower lip puckered out into a pout, and he narrowed his glassy orbs. “Gretchen, dearest, you know I don’t like performing blind readings. It raises so many questions, and I hate being accused of being a fraud.” The type of blind reading he was referring to, and I was requesting, meant I didn’t see the drawn cards at all and simply went off his verbal analysis.

  “Like I would ever accuse you of being a fraud.” I rolled my eyes.

  “True, but I’ve been soured on the practice.” He reached beneath the table and withdrew a deck of tarot cards. “But, if you wish…”

  “I do.”

  He began shuffling and inclined his head toward me. “Turn away, then, sugar.”

  I rotated in my seat to face my back to him as I listened to the sound of the cards slapping against each other and the gentle brushing noises of them skimming through his hands. It was imperative I had a clear head during the reading for the most accurate results, but thoughts and images of Cash and Auras and sailboats and letters were shooting through my brain like pictures in a flip-book. I closed my eyes and tried to banish it all away.

  “Do you have a specific question for the cards?” Madam Adam’s voice had lowered, and he’d taken on the soothing tone he donned when entering the psychic plane.
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  “No,” I murmured. “I’m just looking for clarity about my next steps.”

  He hummed. “In business?”

  “In life.”

  The humming intensified, followed by the smack of the first card being placed onto the table. He quieted for a split second, then resumed his undertones with a second smack. Eight more smacks followed, along with a long string of hums broken eight times. When he was finished laying out what I assumed was a Celtic Cross spread, Madam Adam went completely silent, and I was left to wait while watching the same waves that had rocked Cash and me while we made love.

  “What’s his name?”

  Madam Adam’s question jolted me from my reminiscence, and I almost turned around in surprise. Catching myself at the last minute, I directed my response to the window. “Whose?”

  “The man you’re seeing.”

  “Do the cards say I’m seeing a man?”

  He made a noise in his throat. “Do you know the saying about doctors making the worst patients?” I nodded. “Well, readers made the worst querents.” He laughed. “Sugar, I’m a psychic. I see a man in your present. And if I do say so myself, you have a glow about you that I’m pretty sure means you’re having excellent, mind-blowing sex.”

  Well, he hit that on the nose. “His name is Cash. Are the cards mentioning him?”

  “Oh, yes.” He paused for a brief intermission of hums. “Mhm. This man is also in your future, and it’s a delicious future of romance and passion and deep, real friendship.”

  My heart leaped into my throat, and I actually let out a strained gurgle of excitement.

  “This Cash, he’s also tied to the Pennington’s problem, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s conflict there. Your romantic paths are intertwined, but the business issue is like a boulder blocking your way. If it isn’t resolved, you two won’t be able to move forward.”

  The excitement ebbed into anxiety. “How are we supposed to resolve it?”

  “Sweetness, I’m a psychic, not a life coach.” He clucked his tongue. “However, your career path has wonderful promise. Amazing things to come, if managed correctly. I’d bet a pretty penny Auras is going to be bigger and better than either you or I ever imagined. But there’s signs of change, necessary change, to achieve this.”

  “So, I should sell?” Disappointment flooded the space in my veins where the excitement had just been, and my anxiety heightened. “Give the property up to Pennington’s and start somewhere new?”

  “I didn’t say that. Change comes in many forms, and you’re too focused on only one.” I desperately wanted to turn around and see the cards for myself, but I didn’t want to ruin the reading. “This could mean you should sell, absolutely, but it could also mean you hold your ground. You keep Auras right where it is and build an expansion. Maybe you’ll buy up the block Pennington’s now owns since they won’t be able to build as long as you remain steadfast in your refusal.”

  I ground my teeth. “Then, you’re saying I should keep it.”

  “No wonder you’ve been getting mixed messages during your readings!” I heard his hand swooshing over the tabletop, gathering up the cards, but I waited until I heard him open the under-table drawer and replace the deck to turn around and face him. He was looking at me with dramatic indignance. “You can’t ask the tarot something with a preconceived answer in mind. The cards will tell you what is, not what you want to be.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I know.”

  He reached across the table for my hands and took them in his. “Honey, here’s the bottom line. I love Auras just as much as you do. I created that place from scratch, for goddess’s sake! It would be a terrible tragedy to see it die under the foot of a corporate machine, but you won’t let that happen. Whether you move to another location or stay right where you are, Auras will thrive. It’s up to you which choice you make, but neither choice is the wrong choice.”

  I smiled as unexpected tears pricked my eyes. “Yeah. Thanks, Madam Adam.”

  “And, hey.” He let go of one of my hands to reach up and chuck my chin. “There’s a bright side to all this.”

  “Fill me in, because I struggle to see it sometimes.”

  “Are you kidding? You’ve got a fine man and damn good sex.” He cackled naughtily, and I laughed.

  “Well, sure, there’s that.”

  He threw the tail of his headscarf over his shoulder like the tresses of a long wig. “Baby doll, for some of us, that’s everything.”

  I got to my feet, wound around the table to him, and gave him a hug. “You’re one of a kind, you know.”

  “Don’t I know it!” He kissed me on the cheek. “Chin up, lovely, okay? This is just one of the hardships of being a business owner, but you’re doing a great job. Better than I ever did.”

  “Thanks,” I repeated.

  He kissed my other cheek, then wrapped an arm around my waist and walked me back toward the door as he chattered, “Now that we’ve got that cleared up, we’re getting some iced tea and some fitness magazine centerfolds to ogle.”

  I snickered, and the pressure of my uncertain future seemed to lift off my shoulders the moment I stepped over the threshold.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Cash

  Fawn was an eerie place. Its weather was completely in touch with my emotions, constantly providing a backdrop of fitting imagery to the things going on in my head.

  Today, it was gray, dreary, and raining. The temperature had dropped from the comfortable low sixties of yesterday to high forties, and there wasn’t a break in the cloud cover to be seen.

  It was the sixth-month anniversary of my father’s death.

  I sat on the bed in my hotel room, still in my pajamas, without a laptop or phone within reach. I hadn’t been actively thinking about what the next day was when I’d gone to bed the night before, but I’d woken up with the innate knowledge that, exactly six months prior, my dad had taken his last breath.

  To anyone who had known the structure of the relationship between Dad and me, it probably would have seemed like I was putting on a show of grief for the sake of some twisted karma points. I wasn’t crying or moping or cursing the gods above for taking him so young, but I couldn’t muster the motivation to do anything more than stare at the wall across from me and think about what he’d meant to me while he was alive… and what I’d wished he’d meant.

  The night of his death was as clear to me as any other important day of my life, yet it was also a complete blur. I remembered the dark circles under his eyes as he walked in the door, straight off his flight from Albuquerque. I could see my mother giving him a kiss on the cheek and asking if he wanted her to warm up dinner, and how he’d shaken his head and told her he wasn’t hungry. She’d told him to go on to bed and watched him trudge up the stairs, then turned to me and commented on how tired he looked. I’d agreed and bid her goodbye, having stayed at the house only for the length of his absence like I usually did when he was gone for more than a night.

  Four hours later, my cell phone jarred me awake, and I picked up to hear my mother screaming on the other end of the line. By the time I got there, he was being wheeled away on a stretcher by two bulky EMTs. He was pronounced dead before they reached the hospital.

  My hands balled into fists in my lap, and I jammed my head back against the wall. His death made me angry. Hell, his life made me angry. Everything about my father made me angry, but what infuriated me more than anything he ever did or didn’t do was how much I missed him.

  I missed him teaching me how to drive.

  I missed throwing a football back and forth.

  I missed having grilling competitions to see who could make the best burger.

  None of that ever happened. Uncle Richie, my mom’s younger brother, taught me to drive in the stick-shift Ford Ranger he’d had for twenty years. Drew and I were the only ones to use my backyard for midday games of catch. Most of the time, a hired chef did the grilling, and the few times my dad mann
ed the grill, he’d waved me away with the spatula and told me not to bother him while he was cooking.

  I missed him for all of it because he’d missed it all, and there was no chance now that he’d ever make it right.

  I tried to shift gears, to focus on some of the better memories I had with him, but they were so few and far between that I couldn’t think of one. Dinners were usually spent without him, just me and Mom, because he was still at the office or out of town. We never went to the movies, mini-golfing, or fishing like most dads and sons. He took me to a baseball game once, but he’d spent the entire time on a business call while I watched the game by myself from the private box. Each and every memory I had of him was tainted, and a fresh swell of resentment blossomed in my chest.

  The worst times we shared, however, I could recall on a whim, and they came to me more vividly than ever as I stretched out on the bed and flexed my fingers in and out of fists.

  There was the time the police showed up at our house to inform Dad I’d missed too much school and truancy charges would be filed if I didn’t improve my attendance. He was gone so often he didn’t have a clue about my daily goings-on, but he took it upon himself to nail my ass to the wall over that one. According to him, school was my job, and he would be damned if his son was the guy who never came into work.

  Then, there was the other woman. My mom suspected he was sneaking around on her when he started taking monthly trips to Omaha, and it all came to a head after someone called the house claiming she was pregnant by my father. It turned out she was a former Pennington’s employee who’d been fired for petty theft trying to get revenge for her dismissal, as well as a buck or two off Dad, but our household was in shambles for months.