by Simone Kelly
He pointed to a leather chair for me to sit in. Jacques saw the magazine in my hand and said, “Oh, I see you’ve met my brother, Hicham.” He pointed to the photo of a skinny white-looking dude whose headshot was next to the article title.
I looked at the photo and then at Jacques. “Brother? Are you serious? I thought he was a regular white dude, or maybe Latino.”
“Dead serious! And, yes, like most people think I am Spanish.” He raised his eyebrows with a tilt of his head. “Yeah, he’s a bit longer in the face. He’s much taller and skinnier, but that is my flesh and blood as much as I’m embarrassed to say at times. Hope that didn’t offend you too much. His big mouth is one of his money-makers, believe it or not.”
“How cool that he writes that column? Didn’t it start off in Maxim magazine?”
“No, it was his blog first, then it went viral online, then a few magazines picked it up. Now he’s syndicated. He’s well connected, my little brother.” He smiled with pride.
“Well, I’m fascinated that this guy is your brother. You seem like total opposites.”
He took a sip of water and smoothed out his thermal shirt that showed his defined pecs and biceps. “Oh, we are; that we are.”
“May I keep it?” I held up the magazine.
“Sure, take it! I can’t believe you like it.” He shook his head.
“Well, it gives us women a different perspective on how some men think.”
“Key word: some. Some. Please don’t lump us all together after reading his crazy stuff.”
He handed me a bottle of water. “All right. Let’s get started!” He shuffled his tarot cards and I took a deep long breath and listened to the gentle waterfall behind me.
Now, this was a freebie, so I didn’t want to take advantage, but I had a gazillion questions to ask. My palms were sweating and my heart was beating fast.
He looked at me intensely. His eyes were deep and sincere. It felt like he could see right through me. “Soooo . . . are you ready to get started?”
“Okay . . . and please don’t talk like that. I won’t be able to concentrate.”
He licked his lips and smiled. I crossed my legs and tried to say focused. “Okay, but I have to ask, do you agree with Hicham’s ideas about how men have to have more than one woman?”
“Well, I guess if that is what you’re into. Me, I’d rather spend my energy, time, and money on one lady.”
“Oh . . .”
“Yes, you know, makes life easier. Less drama, less headache.”
Humph. Whatayaknow? A loyal man. A rare species! I shifted in my seat. It suddenly got hotter in the room.
I spoke softer. “Wow, I wish there were more men like you. You are taken, right?” Hey, why not ask? I gulped, awaiting his response. He paused and tilted his head with a smile.
“Well, in a way. But, Kylie . . . if I wasn’t, I’m sure we’d have much more to talk about.” He winked.
“Oh, Jacques, please don’t play like that!” I hit his hand across the table and smiled a girlish grin.
He pointedly cleared his throat. “Okay, now let’s get down to business. From what I feel, I would have too much competition, anyhow. You have a few suitors lurking in the shadows, huh?”
“Oh really? Well, they are doing a damn good job at lurking.” I guess he was referring to Chauncey and Breeze.
He looked at me with deep hypnotic eyes. “Okay, ready . . .”
“Yes, but promise me you won’t tell me any scary stuff.” I slipped off my flip-flops to get comfortable.
“No worries, I will only tell you what they show me. They usually don’t show me the doom and gloom stuff, but if you need a warning, I will let you know what to watch out for.”
“They?”
“Yes, your guides, spirit guides. They’re your guardians, your protectors. We have several at a time, depending on what we need in our lives.”
I was fascinated and looked around him. “Wow, so you hear them talking right now? Kinda creepy, no?”
“Well, I will hear them in a minute. I still have to meditate for a few. I’ll hear them and start to see pictures. It’s hard to explain, but it’s like mini movies in my mind. Some things are like full-out dreams, some comedic, some like cartoons. I hear songs that I know will trigger a thought. I even see TV shows or hear commercial jingles. It’s rather entertaining, my job.” He smiled.
“Wow, the wonderful world of being psychic. I think this shit is so cool!”
He said, “Both of the main spirit guides I hear usually come to me as one voice in my head, but I can feel their presence. Their names are Edna and Kamani.” He inhaled deeply and continued, “I heard them say, ‘We brought someone for you.’ A man came from behind them in a uniform.” He tilted his head to the side as if trying to decipher something. “He is here.” Jacques opened his eyes and looked to my right, then closed his eyes slowly. I got chills.
“He said to tell you, ‘You look just like her.’ He’s saying you look just like your mom. He has strong energy. He’s smiling. But he’s very stern.” He took a deep breath and backed up, as if someone were talking close to his face.
“What? My dad? My dad!”
“Yes, it’s him. He’s sorry, he’s ashamed.” Jacques’s demeanor changed; he started slouching and holding his eyes, as if transforming into a depressed person. “He said he lived in guilt for years after your mother left and he’s sorry.”
I leaned in, eyebrows raised. I couldn’t believe it. “I had no idea you talked to dead people, too!”
“Sometimes. When it’s a very powerful presence, I have to send on a message.”
Chapter 15
Jacques
The sun had already set and the moon was beginning to make its shy appearance. Kylie’s father had more messages for me to give her but that’s when the tall halogen lamp in my office flickered. It startled us. Two seconds later, the water fountain, the air-conditioning, my digital clock, and the light all shut off. I got a sense of urgency, a strange feeling swirling in my stomach. I looked outside and saw there were no streetlights on and the apartments across the street were in complete darkness.
“Did my father do that?” Kylie mumbled. “Jacques, I’m scared.”
I was, too, but I didn’t tell her that. We weren’t completely in darkness. My savior was the dim flicker of flame on the table from the white candle I light during my readings. I stood and took the candle with me to a storage closet in my office to find more candles. My neck tensed as I thought about being surrounded by blackness.
“No, no. It’s not your father. It’s something else.” His presence had vanished as soon as the lights went out and I lost my concentration. A reassuring voice in my head said, “Stay cool, man, stay cool. The power will come back on.”
After I lit a few candles, my office was easier to be in, but the tension in my back and the queasy feeling in my stomach told me the worst was not over. I pointed to Kylie to stay put and grabbed a candle. “I’ll be right back.”
“Oh no, I’m not staying here by myself. I’m coming.” She picked up a candle and placed her hand on my shoulder to follow me out. I wished I had a flashlight. I hoped that we’d find others in the adjoining offices this late. Kylie hung on to the sleeve of my shirt as we went to open the door and hit something on the other side.
“Ouch!” Dee rubbed her forehead and held the doorknob with her other hand.
“Sorry!” I tried not to laugh. I had forgotten she was out there waiting for her ride.
“What’s with the lights? What’s happening?” Dee asked.
“It’s a local power outage. It should come back on soon,” I reassured them both, trying to convince myself as well.
“Hello,” Dee said to Kylie and squeezed my arm to make the introductions.
“Oh, forgive me! Dee, my seven thirty P.M., meet Kylie, my eight thirty P.M.”
“Hi, guess I’ll have to reschedule, huh?” Kylie mumbled.
“Okaaaay!” Dee laughed.
I heard mumbles and then the loud voice of a man. “Yeah, ova here, in the detective agency.” A door cracked open and a turbo-powered flashlight almost blinded us.
“Ova here, guys.” He turned inside the office, then yelled, “Wow, we got company, Antonio.”
I walked down the hallway quickly, protecting the flame from blowing out. There were two men in the small office. The one who sounded like a New Yorker was a small stocky guy about five three, in a tight dark suit. I’d seen him before. He gave me head nods in the elevator.
The other guy was on his cell phone talking with his back facing us and looking out the window. He was a black dude, very tall, about six four or six five, wearing a dark overall type uniform. It said PEST CONTROL on the back. The girls went straight to the cozy couch by the entrance that served as a waiting area. I grabbed a chair from one of the two desks to sit by them.
“I’m on the phone with my wife getting the news, she’s watching TV,” the short guy said as he picked up the receiver.
“Damn, it’s a bit warm in here already.” Kylie looked at her phone and fanned herself. “I can’t get any reception. You?”
I looked at my cell and didn’t see any bars. “Oh, they don’t work or you’ll just hear that the lines are busy,” the short man said. He mocked a nasal operator’s voice. “Please try your call again.” He paced around the desk while on the phone. “Ya gotta use a land line.” His strong accent rang through. “It’s a freakin’ blackout, my wife is at home in Fort Lauderdale watching CNN right now. There is a blackout in Miami! The entire city!”
We all looked at one another with raised eyebrows. It was not just a neighborhood outage like I had previously hoped.
“I’m Vince, guys. Sorry for being rude.” He pointed to the phone. “But ya know . . .” He cut us off before we could introduce ourselves. “That’s Antonio in the back there. He’s probably the only lucky bastard with reception on his cell.”
Dee jumped up. “Jacques, I gotta call my girlfriend who was supposed to pick me up. She’s probably stuck in traffic. She’s seven months pregnant, remember?”
“Damn, that’s scary,” Kylie murmured.
Vince chimed in, “Oh, it’s gotta be murder out there, no stoplights working. Accidents left and right. You can use our phone to try her. Hopefully her cell works.”
I leaned in toward Vince. “Easy, there.” Vince had no tact, just scaring the hell out of everybody. He shrugged his shoulders and continued talking to his wife.
I said softly to Dee, “She’ll be fine.”
Dee ignored me and got up to use the phone on the desk by Antonio.
My stomach jumped again. I felt like this was the start of a very eventful night to say the least. Antonio had a distinctive scratchiness to his voice and a slight drawl when he spoke. His confident stride around the back of the office definitely got Kylie’s attention. She watched him pace back and forth and fidget with the blinds and ornaments on the windowsill. I couldn’t help but notice Dee watching him, too.
He must have felt us all looking and finally gave us a quick wave as he spoke on the phone. “I’m at work lil’ man, where else? You ah-ight? Good, just stay in the house and lock the door. You have your flashlight? I’m gonna call Boogah to come check on you in a few. His cell was busy when I tried him before.”
He turned toward us. “Yo, Vince, what’s the number on line two?” he said into the phone in a calming voice. “Get a pen, Khalik.” He read off the number from a business card Vince handed him. “Ah-ight, in case my cell doesn’t work, just call this number if you hear anything. They gonna fix the lights soon, lil’ man, don’t be a punk.” He laughed. “Yeah ah-ight, show me you the man. Love you.” He held the phone up to us as if we could see through it and grinned. “That’s my son, he’s eleven.”
“Hey, man.” He gave me the head nod, then turned to Dee, who had just hung up with her friend. “I’m Antonio,” he said with a smooth edginess while extending his hand.
“Hey, I’m Dee, that’s Jacques and Kylie,” she said looking him dead in his eyes. Then like clockwork she fluffed her bangs.
“Hey, aren’t you that psychic guy?” Antonio took a swig of his bottled drink and looked me up and down.
I nodded, even though I hated being called “that psychic guy.” I call myself an intuitive counselor for a reason. There isn’t anything wrong with the term “psychic,” it’s just that people automatically think of crooked fortune tellers.
“Hold on, hon,” Vince mumbled as he covered the phone. “Ya know, I always wanted to come and make an appointment, but never got the chance.”
“Why not?” I said.
Kylie jumped in, “Yeah, he’s good, too!”
Antonio gave Vince a stern look. “You save your money, man, you need all of it to pay me on time.”
Vince tucked in his shirt over his protruding beer belly. “Antonio, shut up!” Those two seemed to have a brotherly kind of relationship, even though they looked like complete opposites. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were brothers or friends in a past life. Their connection was strong. Very warm auras.
Antonio laughed and sat on the edge of the desk, observing the lovely ladies I brought with me.
Kylie grabbed one of the pillows from the couch and sat Indian style on the floor. Her eyes widened. “This is kind of exciting. I mean, who knows how long this can last? All of us, trapped here, fighting over that Snickers bar on Vince’s desk or the bottle of water on that other desk.”
Antonio opened the top two buttons of his uniform and wiped the sweat forming on his top lip. “Shit, this better be over in, like, twenty minutes. I just came by the office to pick up a file. My son is home by himself and it’s starting to get hot as hell in here.”
“Speaking of hot, you got any more water, Antonio?” Kylie said in a sugar-coated tone. He grabbed one of the many candles on the desk and put it close to his clear bottle to show Kylie the deep green murky substance floating in his bottle.
“Ewww, I’ll pass.” Kylie turned up her face and waved him off.
Antonio shrugged. “There’s always the fountain and I think we have some spring water in the kitchen down the hall.”
Dee laughed. “What the hell is that nasty shit?”
“It’s a detox drink called Super Greens, full of antioxidants and grasses and veggies.”
“Oh, you’re one of those fanatics.” Dee tapped me.
I laughed. “Oh, okay, Super Greens! That’s good stuff. I did that detox last year.” I tapped Dee right back. “Remember what I said earlier, you should do something like that.” I winked.
Kylie now took off her flip-flops and got even more comfortable on the floor, like she was at a slumber party. She patted the space above her on the couch to invite Antonio to sit down next to her. I don’t know why, but I was a bit jealous.
Kylie turned toward Antonio. “You’re the exterminator for this building? I heard you say to your son that you were at work.”
“Oh, nah, I’m a private detective.” He tugged at his exterminator getup. “Oh, you thought that I worked for Terminix for real? Nah, love, this was a cover when I was doing surveillance today.”
Kylie was eating this up. “What kind of surveillance?”
“Cheating wife. I’ve seen her leaving every day at two P.M. to go sex her brother-in-law. A little afternoon delight.” He seemed to enjoy his job by the smile he unleashed.
“Get out!” Kylie shouted as she hit the pillow in her lap.
Dee slapped a pack of Newports in her hand. “Shit, I wish I knew you guys years ago, so you could have followed around my ex’s lying ass.” Dee laughed and started to light a cigarette on one of the candles.
“Oh no, love, you can�
��t do that in here.” Antonio jumped up from the couch and walked over to Dee.
“I know, I’m sorry, I was going to do it in the hallway, but my nerves are bad.”
“You shouldn’t do that anyhow, destroying that beautiful body you got.” He reached over and gently took the cigarette from her hand. “You know how many cells you are killing with each puff, how you are jacking up your lungs, your teeth, your skin?”
Kylie chimed in. “Yeah, you really—”
Dee pointed her finger at Kylie. “Look, I’m sorry that I’m not a health nut like the rest of you. I’m just fucking scared and I need this for my nerves. My girl Storm is out there alone. And there’s probably accidents and God knows what else possibly going on.”
“Chill, chill out.” Antonio gently rubbed her back. It was a bit more familiar than he should have been, but Dee didn’t stop him.
She held her hand up. “I’m going outside to smoke my cigarette and wait for my girl to get here. Please, just let me do it.”
“You can’t go out there by yourself,” I told her.
“She’s only about ten or so blocks away, Jacques. I’m from New York, I can handle it.”
I tried to reason with her. “The elevators are out and you can’t walk down the stairs alone. It’s pitch-black aside for some emergency lights. Look, I’ll come with you.” I got up and followed her. I looked back at Kylie. “You gonna be okay?” I felt a good energy around Antonio. He was playful, but harmless. He made eye contact with me and smiled. The glow of the moon and the candles showed a grin on Kylie’s face as she nodded her head yes and hugged a pillow.
Antonio jutted out his chin. “Gah ’head, man, we’ll take care of her.”
Chapter 16
Kylie
I was happy when they left. Dee was a pretty hot number and I couldn’t tell if Antonio was flirting with me, her, or both of us. So now at least I had less competition. Looks like she shot herself in the foot with that smoking, anyhow. Health nuts don’t like smokers and she was so rude.