by Amber Foxx
“What do you mean? What are Mama and Doctor Hoggard doing?”
“Moving to his Florida house. You want to see her, Mae. You should. She’ll never ask, but she’d want to see you before she goes.”
It was almost as bad as letting Dana move in with Charlie. “They got me fired, they cheated on you and Mary Carter, and now I should want to help her pack up and say goodbye? So she can move in with him and have a clear conscience?”
“I don’t mean to preach to you ... but we’re all sinners. We all fall short.” Arnie fell silent for so long Mae wondered if the call had cut off. Then she heard him. “She’s still your mother.”
“I don’t think she’d even want to see me.”
“You show up, she won’t turn you away. I’d feel better knowing you were coming. She wants me away while she packs, and I’m going, but it’s got to be hard on her doing that alone.”
He still cares about her, even while he’s kicking her out. “I’ll do it for you, Arnie.”
“God bless you.”
If Mae was going to have to go see Rhoda Rae, she surely had the strength to face Charlie.
Arriving early at CVU, Mae hoped for the chance that she might find Charlie free and ask him about his shamanic studies. He might be flattered, and it could be a back road into learning about the wolf. But he mightn’t want to see her after that weird meeting in the screen.
As she walked towards the faculty offices at the end of the hall, Mae was surprised to see Randi in her office in the middle of the day.
“Hey, I thought you’d be at Oceanfront.”
Randi looked up from a thick textbook. “Taking a long lunch. It’s my best place to get any studying done compared to being at home right now.”
“I’m sorry. Anything I can do?”
“Not really. It’ll get better when Rick finishes moving. He’s got a place for May first. I just have to survive through exams living with him. We avoid each other. So I study here, work late.” Her mouth twisted in a half smile of resignation. “Between you and me and Dana, it’s starting to feel like the Bermuda Triangle around here. Every ship is going down.” Then her expression shifted to curiosity as she leaned toward Mae. “How’d it go with DAB?”
“You won’t believe this but—she liked the workout.”
“I trained you. Of course I believe it. I expect you to be good.” Randi grinned. “That makes my day.” She looked more serious. “Can you stand her?”
“I won’t say I exactly like her, but I can stand her.”
“That’s good enough.”
“I’ll let you study. Is Charlie in?” Mae felt a twinge of unease as she asked.
“Yes. He usually is at this hour. Which reminds me—close the door as you go.”
Mae pulled Randi’s door shut. It was a good sign, not wanting to see him—it helped erase the imagined connection between them. He might have pursued her, but Randi had to have said no.
As Mae turned the corner to the next section of the hallway, the door to Charlie’s office opened, and she heard soft voices and music, chants and drums. No light spilled out. He’d been in there in the dark. A few seconds later, Paula’s door, slightly ajar to start with, opened all the way, and she emerged with a stack of papers and a ring of keys. Paula looked down to check the lock on her door, and froze. A girl’s Southern-accented voice floated from Charlie’s office. “That was really incredible, Dr. Tann.”
Paula and Mae, on either end of the short corridor, locked gazes briefly.
Charlie sounded reflective, pleased, intrigued. “The world is a great mystery.”
The female voice in the office almost whispered, “I’ll see you later.”
“Make a good one.”
A tall, graceful girl with a cloud of golden hair slipped out, head bowed, and passed Mae. Humming to himself, Charlie turned on the lights in his office and opened the blinds. There was a smell of sage.
“Having ceremonies?” Paula asked, finally shutting her door.
Charlie picked up a rattle that was lying on his file cabinet and shook it, mock-dancing a little, then set it down. “Good morning, Dr. Hart,” he said cheerfully. He clearly had no intention of engaging in conversation about what he’d been doing.
“Good morning,” she replied. “Wasn’t that Marla Gresczek?”
Pamela’s maiden name. Marla had that same quality Mae’d seen in Dana when she first met her, that of a moon falling into an orbit.
“She’s in your class,” Charlie said. “I’m sure you know her name.”
Shaking her head, Paula walked past Mae with a warning look and proceeded toward her classroom.
Bernadette’s door was closed. But she might be avoiding Charlie like Randi was. Since Mae was already so close to Charlie’s office, she had to say something. She had to jump in and ask the questions. She was here, nervous or not. And her outrage at seeing him apparently playing his guru game to seduce yet another student made her want to challenge him.
Before she could speak, Charlie said, “You seem to be turning up everywhere.” It was hard to tell from the warm voice and cold eyes whether he meant the vision, the encounter at Oceanfront, Bernadette’s place, or all of it.
“I’m working part-time for Randi. That’s why you saw me Saturday.” She hesitated. “Mind if I come in?”
He said nothing, but walked to his desk, ejected a CD from the computer and slid it into a plastic case, then sat down, shifting some of the mess on the desk with no clear intention. Mae stood in the doorway.
“I think that girl who just left is my new training client’s sister.” How could she ask him anything when he ignored her? It was unnerving. “I was wondering if my client was the girlfriend on that South American trip. I really liked the DVD of your shamanism class ...”
Charlie found a pen and scratch pad in his desk’s top drawer, wrote something down, folded the paper in quarters, and then turned to face Mae. Tipping his chair back, he held the folded paper in his right hand, tapping it back and forth between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand. A steady, confident rhythm. “What,” he asked, “do you think I wrote?”
Puzzled, Mae walked in uninvited and took a seat in the chair at the round table. She made a guess. He would do something to make her lose—and therefore no word could be correct. “Just a scribble. You didn’t write any words at all, just gobbledygook.”
Charlie made a ceremony of unfolding the paper, and then leaned towards Mae, formally handing it to her. Indeed, it was series of nonsensical loops and slashes that mimicked the movement of handwriting. Was he testing her again, like he had before he called Deborah? Back then, he seemed to think she was mostly guessing.
“Very good.” He leaned back again, steepling his fingers. “And her sister’s name?”
Mae felt her uneasiness rise again. He knew she knew this, so what was he doing? She hadn’t meant for him to take charge and interrogate her. It was supposed to be her asking him questions. “Pamela.”
“A—-nd?” his voice had that rounded, sliding curve to it, the tone that said I know you have more to say.
“Like I said.” Mae sat up straight, increasingly uncomfortable. “She’s your ex-girlfriend.”
“And knowing what you know, what sort of man would go to this much trouble to help a little sister of this ex-girlfriend?”
“I can’t say.” Mae doubted this story. “I didn’t know you were helping her with anything.”
“Precisely.” He opened his desk drawer and reached to the back, bringing up the damaged goods, the tiny wooden Buddha with the water-marred hand and the cracked red bowl with the pale interior. Mae felt her body brace and her hands grow damp. How had he known to bring those out? “You can’t picture me as a counselor, though, can you?”
Paula’s long-ago Charlie might have been wise or kind enough, but not the Charlie Mae knew. “Not really, no. But I’ve heard someone say you were, years ago.”
“Years ago, eh?” He set the objects on the table beside th
e overgrown potted plant. The cracks that ran through the tiny bowl had caused some of the interior glaze to chip away, showing the bare white porcelain beneath. “Why are you interested in my years ago? There’s nothing to this.” He tapped a finger on the little ruined Buddha. “It only has meaning if I give it meaning. My past,” he locked eyes with Mae, “is discontinuous with the present that I choose. It can have meaning. It can be nothing. But looking at it changes it. It gives it power.” He leaned forward, his eyes and voice full of cold fire. “You, young lady, have been looking.”
Mae froze. How much of what she’d seen did he know?
Sitting back again, Charlie drummed his fingers fluidly on the arms of the chair. “You have been looking at the past, and at the present, and in places you had no right to go.”
Mae took a deep breath and held it for a second, not sure what to say. She’d seen some things by accident that she had no right to see. But something in her resisted Charlie. He’d been lying to Dana to make her think he was a better man than he was, and that made it hard to let him be right. “Dana needs to know.”
“Yes, yes, Dana asked you to do it. I forgive Dana. She has a right to be curious, a right even to pry. But you,” he leaned toward her again, “have no idea what you’re doing.” He took the objects in his hands again. “You are blundering around in people’s minds and lives without the slightest concern for the damage you’re doing.”
“By getting at the truth of you?” She could feel him trying to trick her, the way he always did, trying to make her say or do something. “You can’t blame me for your past. If something’s rotten, it’ll stink if you stir it.”
He laughed humorlessly. “I’m a lot older and wiser than you. You have a great gift. But you should have told Dana no. What you did was wrong. Have you ever considered that just by watching, you change the world? You did harm. And you were too stupid even to know it.”
Sounded like bull to her. “Show me the harm I did.”
“I told you not to heal people. Do you have any idea what you do when you play healer? Has it ever occurred to you that there are other people’s lives involved when you go prodding around in someone’s soul?”
“I do what I’m asked, healing or seeing. I’m not playing.” She felt her anger rise at yet another person telling her not to follow her calling, cutting it down, saying it was bad. She’d made some mistakes, but not as a healer. And getting women to leave or doubt Charlie was no kind of harm. “I didn’t like seeing what I did. But people want to be helped. And they want to know the truth. Maybe you got so used to lying that you honest-to-God believe what you’re saying—”
“Do you think,” he held the small objects towards his heart in a way that suggested he could crush them, but his touch was light, “that I’m not working on my soul?”
Nothing she had seen, in visions or in life, suggested to Mae that he was working on his soul. Seemed like he’d quit doing that a long time ago. All she’d seen him doing was manipulating women to get what he wanted. He was like the professor version of Rhoda Rae. Twice the power and half the drama, but it was the same game. Fake Christian Mama, fake Buddhist Charlie, or whatever religion he borrowed these days. “Not really.”
He gave her a freezing cold gaze, put the small objects away. “You’re out of your depth. You’d better watch your step.”
She hadn’t. She’d gotten tripped into a fight with him, instead of getting answers to her questions. After taking a moment to pull herself back in, she asked, “If I don’t, are you gonna send that wolf after me?”
Wrong move. It seemed to enrage him. “You don’t know what that is.” He thrust his head and shoulders towards her, red faced, gripping the arm of his chair. “You think that because I don’t do what you would do—”
A knock at the open door. Bernadette. “I need to talk with you, Charlie.”
“Not now.”
Bernadette glanced at Mae, then back at Charlie. “Yes, now. I need to get this over with today.”
He sat back, his jaw clenched, his still hands tight on the chair arms, still glaring at Mae. “Talk.”
“I’ve taken another job,” Bernadette said. “I’m leaving as soon as exams are done.”
Charlie stood, pushing himself up forcefully with his arms, and slammed one hand back against the edge of the desk, provoking an avalanche. He paced to the window and looked out. “Damn. Goddamn.” He pointed back to where Mae sat, without looking at her. “Get her out of here.”
Bernadette nodded towards the hallway, and stepped into the office. As Mae passed her, Bernadette mouthed the words, stay close. Mae stopped outside the door, back against the cold cinderblock wall. If Bernadette didn’t want to be alone with Charlie, her wishes mattered more than his. Mae knew how afraid her friend had been of this confrontation, and Mae hadn’t made it easier, getting Charlie already in a temper.
His voice fell to a near whisper. “Nothing’s working. I miss you, Bern. It’s like, without your touch, I’m just not ... alive.”
Mae prayed Bernadette wouldn’t cave in to this. She couldn’t see Bernadette’s face, only her slim, straight back. Charlie seemed to be losing control, but it might be an act. He’d gone from raging to sad way too fast. “Nothing is working,” he repeated to the window.
Bernadette nudged an interoffice envelope with her toe. “Maybe you’re not working.” Mae’s heart cheered her on.
“That’s unfair.” Charlie spun to face Bernadette. Mae almost moved to close the door and leave them, but felt a stronger urge to stay nearby, as if she could protect Bernadette somehow. “You know I work hard. And if you don’t, I can tell you exactly what I’ve been doing.” His face and voice grew furious. “I’m exhausted. I work. You have no idea what’s involved in being the chairman, for starters.”
Bernadette sounded unconvinced, but still placating. “All right, all right, so you work hard.”
“The only part I care about, though, is with you.” He walked towards her, palms up, shifting from rage to longing. “We’ve done some great work together.”
“We have,” she acknowledged without warmth, taking a step back. “We work well together.”
At her withdrawal, Charlie came to a stop and dropped his hands to his sides. “Leaving ...” He shook his head. “I should go with you. Start over.” He swept a hand over the cluttered table. “Look at this place. I’ve got my entire life here. I don’t know where to start without you. Or end.”
“You’re not coming with me. That’s ridiculous. You can start over here.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re so good at letting go.” He returned to his desk, grabbing the armrests of the chair as he sank into the seat, protecting the bad knee. He seemed to age with the movement. “You don’t have any attachments.”
“That’s not true.”
He raised his eyes to her. “You’ve let go of me.”
“Has it occurred to you that maybe this is hard for me too—because some part of me wants to hold on?”
“Then, do.” He stood up, reached for her, and fell back so hard onto his chair that it rolled backwards into his desk. His face turned ashen and clenched with pain, and he broke into a sweat. “Bern, I need you—”
He’s having a heart attack. Mae started into the office as Bernadette knelt beside Charlie, her voice steady. “Relax, and hold still.”
“Don’t leave me.”
“I’m not. Mae, call 911. Dial nine first. Randi! Randi!”
Reaching past Charlie to get the phone, Mae called the emergency number. As she spoke with the dispatcher, Bernadette rose and shouted for Randi again.
“Don’t bring her in,” Charlie groaned. “Not Randi. I don’t want her to see me like this.”
“Randi—” Bernadette stepped out the doorway of Charlie’s office. “I need you to wait outside the building for the rescue squad. Charlie’s having a heart attack.”
“Oh my God. Okay, I’m going.” Randi’s scratchy alto came from the other end of the hallway.
“Tell Charlie if he dies, I’ll kill him.”
He laughed, and sounded like he nearly choked on it.
Still on the phone, giving the details of the location and the patient’s condition, Mae stretched the cord to get to her purse and fished in it for the aspirin she carried for emergencies. As she finished her call, she gave the aspirin bottle to Bernadette, who opened it and handed one to Charlie.
“EMS is on the way,” Mae said. She went to stand in the doorway to watch for the paramedics.
Leaning back in his chair, his belt loosened, his collar unbuttoned, Charlie silently accepted the baby aspirin and popped it in his mouth. He chewed it, swallowed, then looked at Mae.
“Go wait outside.”
Mae asked Bernadette, “Are you CPR certified?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Then I’m staying.”
Charlie frowned and shifted his weight with a low moan. “I thought you wouldn’t piss in my ear if my brain was on fire.”
Mae looked at his pale, damp face, contorted with pain. Even in the middle of a heart attack, he was still fighting with her. “I’m surprised you remembered that.”
He stared at Mae with narrowed eyes, pointing a finger at her, then, seeming to look at something in the air beside her, tapped the finger at this apparition. “You’re the one—” Too breathless to finish, he grasped Bernadette’s hand and closed his eyes, as she smoothed his damp hair back. Was she caving in?
Don’t leave me. What were the chances this was the ultimate manipulation? His arguments and pleas hadn’t worked. But this might have, might have hooked two or three fish with this one big chunk of bait.
Mae walked over to the shelf where the brocade box with the dragon-enameled balls sat, took it down, opened it, and brought the balls out. They chimed as they clicked together in her hand, then she began to roll them, circling them the way he had shown her. If she was right, she was pretty sure Charlie wasn’t going to die.
Charlie’s eyes opened. “What are you doing with my balls?”