Sandcastles

by Suzie Carr

  My imagination began to run wild.

  Was the person’s brain wired differently? Did it run in the family? If Willow had kids, would they too be able to freak people out by telling their past, present and future?

  Were Willow and her aunt the devil’s helpers or were they just a couple of fakes who simply got lucky with their guesses?

  Did the aunt just guess wrong about Dean’s allergy or would he really suffer one day out of the blue? Poor guy had already started to bite his nails down to nothing over the imminent allergy attack that steadied itself to launch an assault on his skinny, delicate body. I wouldn’t be surprised if he already put a call in to his general practitioner for a full body scan to see if the little allergy critters were already wreaking havoc on his system. I could see the future now. Dean would place his clammy hand in mine as he underwent allergy testing. With each prick, he’d wince a little louder until he’d begin sobbing.

  Actually sobbing might be a good thing. Dean confessed to me that he had never cried a tear past infancy. Not one tear. He said he wished he could, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t cry.

  The guy never lied.

  I looked at my trusted analog clock. It just ticked past the eleven thirty mark. God, where had the night gone?

  I needed to get Dean and Willow out of my mind. I needed sleep.

  I turned over and looked out at the full moon through the slit in my curtains.

  How did her aunt know about my truck? Did she see the scene playing out like a movie minus the popcorn, Twizzlers and giant-sized Diet Coke? Did life play out for them both like a movie screen where they could witness the good and the bad, and escape from their lives and into others? If so, did they get mostly horror flicks, or did the occasional warm-hearted story filter through and allow them to deliver happy endings instead of broken steering columns and doomsday allergic reactions?

  Now I wondered, could a psychic really delve that deep into everyone’s brains? Or could they just read snippets from certain people, like luck of the draw. Maybe they could only get signals from people in tune with such nonsense, and those who didn’t believe in it, subconsciously blocked them from reading thoughts by masking them with a protective coating.

  I rolled over on my other side and stared at the friendship card Dean had sent to me of a little boy kissing the cheek of a little girl as he offered her a bouquet of flowers.

  I wondered, what would it be like to kiss a psychic? What if, in some delusional state, I decided to kiss Willow? Would she experience my secret thoughts? Being that connected to the root of her subject like that, I’d imagine she’d have a front row seat to whatever silly, chaotic, and dramatic thoughts I happened to spiel out at the time. If I hated the way she kissed, she’d know it. How horrible. She’d know, and then I wouldn’t be able to look her in the eye ever again. I guessed though, having my thoughts read instead of spoken could be advantageous, too. If I wanted her to soften her lips and swirl her tongue a little more, I could just think that and voila, she’d receive the intended message and shape up the kiss. Without a word, we’d solve all issues and continue onward satisfied.

  Being in a relationship with a psychic would be pretty cool in that regard. I’d never have to bring up awkward things like I had to with my ex, Sasha. I’d never have to answer dumb questions about whether that outfit added weight to her or argue that her crunching on ice cubes drove me crazy. I’d just sit close, focus on what I wanted to say, turn my head in her direction and think it loud in my mind.

  I stared at my clock. So much for a full eight hours of sleep. If I fell asleep right that very second, I’d get six hours and thirty-two minutes.

  Alright, I needed to disengage the mind.

  I rolled over to my back and stared at the shadowed ceiling again.

  I counted the ticks from my clock.

  I stretched my legs.

  When those two things didn’t work, I resorted to counting backwards. I recited one hundred all the way down to twenty five. At that point, I sat up.

  How the hell did that lady know about my damn truck? If she didn’t scam, it had to be real. If real, how did it work?

  My curiosity stole any chance for sleep. I climbed out of bed and decided to do a little research.

  I entered my dining room, sat at my laptop and began googling. Thousands of pages popped up. I read through the first page of Google’s search findings and exhaled, overwhelmed with the amount of information. I just wanted a simple one-sheeter to tell me how it worked, if it worked, and why it worked.

  If anyone could find it, Dean could.

  Despite the late eleven o’clock hour, and knowing full well Dean was probably reclining back in his sleep number bed with his Tempurpedic pillow and gelled eye mask, I reached for my cell anyway and called him.

  “I need your help,” I said.

  “It’s eleven thirty at night.”

  “It’s important.”

  “If I’m going to talk to you at this hour, I want lunch at Twin Oaks next week.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Can you find me credible scientific information on psychic ability?”

  “Now?”

  “I can’t sleep, and I won’t be able to until I understand how the inner mechanics of the psychic mind works.”

  “You’re freaking out,” he said. “Stop freaking out. I’m not going to die of an asthma attack. I already managed to line up an inhaler just in case.”

  “What? Where? When?”

  “I have connections.”

  “Of course you do.” Dean’s idea of connections meant the back room of some shady shop in the middle of downtown Providence where old women, with crooked spines, doled out medicinal herbs from tin cans hidden behind a beaded curtain. “I’m not concerned about your death by asthma attack. I see you dying in a far more heroic manner, like saving a dog in a burning building or something like that.”

  “Dogs hate me. I won’t be saving any dogs.”

  “You fear dogs. That’s why they hate you, and that’s why I resent you a little. How can I ever adopt a puppy with that silly fear of yours? I’d never be able to take her to work with me, and you’d never come over and visit.”

  “Again,” he said. “It’s eleven thirty. Can we get this conversation moving?”

  “I can’t wrap my brain around how that woman knew about the guy breaking into my truck.”

  “Well, Willow is coming in on Monday morning at ten o’clock to drop off the terry cloth napkins. No need to do internet research in the middle of the night. You can ask her yourself. She’s in your calendar for a meeting.”

  A jolt shot through me. “You already called her?”

  “Yes, and I told her how excited you were to meet with her.”

  “I should fire you for this.”

  “Well, could you hurry it up? I have a dream to reenter where I am journeying on the edge of a lush green field, picking—”

  “—Good night.”

  “Wait, Lia.” He paused. “She’s also excited to meet with you. Her words. Not mine.”

  “Good night,” I said again, feigning a stern tone.

  I hung up and sighed, trying to calm the rising nervous tingle in the pit of my stomach; the second nervous tingle of the day.

  Screw research. I needed a good long soak in the tub, some Mozart, and chocolate.

  # #

  I drove to work in a rented Jeep Wrangler that Monday morning, enjoying the fresh air on my face and thinking of the day ahead.

  I would meet Willow again.

  My stomach knotted.

  A few hours into my day, she arrived. When she walked by my glass walled office wearing a red dress and straight, smooth styled hair, a hushed whistle escaped my lips. She walked across the wooden floor, tapping out a tantric beat with her bouncy, confident gait. She looked like a woman in love with life, and ready to tackle the day with the spirit of a tiger; cool, calm and collected.

  Part the aisles staff, we’ve got ourselves a tigress
beauty.

  I slid off my chair, as though she’d hear me before I could sneak a better peek, and tiptoed to my doorway. Dean greeted her with a flushed face and a bow. She handed him his package of terry cloth napkins, and Dean offered her way too many nods to be good for the tendons in his skinny neck. He transformed into a bobble head, bee bopping his head around like a spring-loaded toy.

  She cocked her head, and her hair swayed off to the side, exposing her toned, golden shoulders.

  My tummy broke out into that flipping thing all over again as I walked out to greet her.

  Dean wore a stupid grin on his face that told me he, although not operating with a single psychic bone in his body, could read my wayward mind in that moment.

  “Oh look, here she is now,” he said, waving me over.

  Willow turned around, and the current she circulated with that tiniest movement, created a windfall of tickles in me. “Thanks again for the drive back here,” I said, offering her my hand.

  “Oh, my pleasure.” Her left eye twitched when her hand landed in mine.

  “Shall we?” I waved her toward my office.

  She nodded and followed. I only peeked back once, and, in my view, I saw Dean’s eyes sparkle with delight in the halo of her blondeness.

  Once inside, I opted to sit on the couch. “It’s less formal.”

  She sat, and crossed one long leg over the other.

  I never remembered seeing those creamy, long legs under her baggy jean shorts as kids.

  “So, you look very nice this morning,” I said, smiling.

  She smoothed her dress over her exposed leg. “Thanks, I normally go to work in yoga pants, but today is a special day. I get to listen to my son and daughter sing at their recital.”

  I continued to smile through a peculiar jolt of disappointment. “Oh you have children. How old are they?”

  “Eight and six.”

  “So you got married?”

  She curled her eyes up to meet mine. “I did.”

  “How long have you been married?”

  She waved off my question. “Oh, we got divorced a few years back.”

  A peculiar jolt of relief now washed over me. “Not the right one?”

  “Nah. Didn’t work out.” She rolled her eyes and released a scoff. “At all.”

  Wouldn’t she have known about the eventual divorce? “How did you not see that coming ahead of time?”

  She paused, reflecting on my jab. “It doesn’t work that way.”

  I wanted to know how it worked. Did she sense something about me? Could she tell her naked calf teased me? I blocked the question, and focused on the meeting at hand.

  I inhaled for rebalance, and she broke in with another question. “Did you get married too?”

  I studied her, curious to see a display of psychic recognition spread across her face as the biographical question sat between us. “You don’t know the answer to that either?”

  “How would I?”

  “Don’t you have special powers to reach into my mind and pull out those kinds of facts?”

  She laughed. “Seriously, it doesn’t work that way.”

  I eased back against the couch. “Well, how does it work? Do you go searching people’s minds for information?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Okay, then do the facts just symbiotically seek you out, like a plant’s roots searching for water? Are we roots to psychics, searching for someone to help us provide nourishment in the form of predictions?”

  “Wow. What an incredible analogy.”

  I offered a cocky smile. “I am a marketing woman. It’s what I do. I fish for information so I can provide proper nourishment to clients. That’s what marketers do. And, I would imagine what many psychics do. They start asking random questions, fishing for someone willing to bite the bait.”

  “I can’t speak for others. I personally don’t fish. If someone’s energy is open, I sometimes get a sense. Thankfully, not with everyone because my mind would be on constant play mode. I’d be kind of crazy, right?”

  “So when you shook my hand just a few minutes ago…”

  Her eyes flirted with mine, latching onto a piece of my soul again and tugging at it. “You were nervous.”

  “Oddly, not that time.”

  She playfully kicked my leg. “So, you do admit to being nervous around me at some point before, then?”

  I fidgeted for a better position.

  “I knew it,” she said, arching her eyebrow. “I always knew you and your sister were afraid of me.”

  “I don’t scare easily. My sister, on the other hand, feared you.” I rose to her challenging brow arch. “She didn’t like having her thoughts invaded.”

  “She’s an open book.”

  “Anna?”

  She nodded. A tease played in her eyes.

  “Did you ever sneak into mine?”

  She leaned in and whispered, “I don’t sneak into the minds of people I like.”

  Her delicate whisper dizzied me.

  Her eyes remained soft. “In all honesty, I don’t read thoughts. I just sense energy.”

  Could she sense the delightful flutters in my tummy?

  Stop it, I silently screamed. Stop being foolish. “Okay, then. Some things are better left a mystery, I suppose.”

  “You’ve always been a mystery.”

  I looked away, indicating we were done talking about me. I raised my invisible shield, protecting myself from further banter. “Let’s hear about this wellness center.”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I’ve got all day.” I relaxed back, draping my arm over the top of the couch, like I really did have all the time in the world to listen to her.

  “Right. And I’ve got a recital to attend. So, I’ll condense it for you.”

  I waved her onward. “Great. Proceed then. What convinced you to enter the wellness industry?” I suddenly felt like my angel investor, Mr. Allen.

  “I always loved yoga and dreamed of centering my life around it as a career one day. It took many years for that to happen. I have my aunt to thank for bringing me face-to-face with the opportunity. The means to my yoga career came walking through our flea market booth one day. Yvonne is her name. Yvonne is a licensed acupuncturist and holistic healer, and she captured my aunt’s heart the moment she sat down before her to chat about her psychic abilities. Long story short, they hooked up, and Yvonne eventually asked my aunt to join her as a healing guide at her wellness center. She refused. My aunt loves to run her own show at the flea market. Ms. Independent.” She chuckled. “Then she told Yvonne that I taught meditative yoga, and I’ve been the lead yoga instructor there ever since.”

  “Do you have a say over marketing?”

  “She trusts my judgment.” She eased into a soft grin. “As well as my reasoning for talking with you today.”

  “And your reasoning would be?” I asked, carefully opening up the slit to that new world and peeking into its mystery.

  “Marketing of course.” Her eyes flickered as if trying to convince herself of that.

  “Just marketing?” I challenged.

  She smirked. “Well, maybe not just marketing.” She gazed at me as if trying to figure out how to put a really important point into play. “I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

  The hairs on my arms stood tall, suddenly. “Why wouldn’t I be?” My pulse quickened, awaiting some scary revelation to come passing out of her lips.

  Her chest began to rise and fall quicker. “Well, it’s just that I—” She paused and stared deeply into my eyes. “—I sensed an imbalance the other day.”

  “An imbalance?” I could hear Anna in my mind, counseling me to back away from her while I still had a chance. “You’re freaking me out.”

  She blinked back my harsh tone. “I’m not trying to scare you.”

  The atmosphere between us changed from a light morning breeze to a thunderous storm. “You should ask permission before you start launching i
nto a reading on someone.”

  Her face reddened. “I’m very sorry. I’m just warning you so you can be proactive about it.”

  “Proactive?” The alarm in my brain raged bright red and stole any and all space for clarity. “I’m no longer comfortable.” I stood up, blocking her with my open hands, as if that would be enough.

  She stood up to meet me. “Please don’t say that. I’m not here to make you uncomfortable.”

  I backed away from her, and grabbed onto the back of one of my chairs. “Yvonne should be the one sitting in this seat, and I should be sitting in mine, and we should be having a conversation about strategies, budget, and marketing outcomes.” I rambled, for lack of anything more productive to do with my nerves.

  “Okay, look. You’re right. Let’s forget I brought up the imbalance. I didn’t mean to worry you. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “You’re right. You shouldn’t have.”

  She shrugged like a person itching from a scratchy sweater. “I feel terrible. I should go.”

  “Yes, you should.”

  “Listen, if you need help rebalancing, come and see me and Yvonne at the wellness center. We’re there to help.”

  I gripped the back of the chair harder. “Is this some sick way to get people to visit the wellness center and take yoga? Tell them they’re out of balance and have them sign up for some special psychic package that includes mud baths, chants, and energy healing with crystals, followed by yoga poses in a hot room?”

  She winced. “Of course not.”

  I walked toward my door and opened it. “Please just leave.”

  “I didn’t come here to scare you. I came because you’re a nice person and I wanted to help.”

  Help me with what? Was I dying? Did I have cancer? Would I live to see the following summer? Who would take over my business? “Please leave,” I said, drawing air too shallow to be worth the effort.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  I crossed my arms over my chest and looked out of my window, wanting her to just disappear.

  “Sorry to have bothered you.” She turned and walked away, toward the stairwell.