Deja Who

by MaryJanice Davidson

  He was already on his feet, the follow-up visit merely something to cross off his calendar on his way back to a (somewhat) better life. “Am I the only patient you’ve had who had the same first name in every life?”

  “No.”

  “Huh.” He seemed disappointed, but shook her hand, shrugged off her de rigueur admonitions to take care of himself and stay away from Rain Down, and walked out. She followed him into the lobby, where to her surprise and delight someone else was waiting with her ten o’clock and ten thirty appointments.

  “Hey!” Archer bounded to his feet like a six-foot puppy. “You didn’t get murdered last night! Great!”

  “It is great,” she agreed, trying not to giggle at Henry’s startled expression as he passed Archer and left the building. She even let Archer kiss her on the cheek and, later, was glad. It was one of the last nice things to happen for a while.

  TWENTY-ONE

  “It’s probably going to be one of your patients,” Archer told Leah, who was looking especially scrumptious with her dark hair piled on top of her head like a sexy brunette donut, a dark green straight skirt

  (pencil skirt? pen skirt? something . . . his cousin would know)

  that fell just past her knees, one of those pretty blouses that looked like a fancy T-shirt in a lighter shade, skin-colored pantyhose

  (nude? that’s what they call that color, which seems pretty un-PC but it’s nude, right? argh, don’t think about nude and Leah don’t don’t)

  and orange and white running shoes.

  “Huh,” he said, staring down at them.

  “What? Have you tried running around in pumps all day? No? All right, then. Also this is Chicago and there is no way you have never seen a woman wearing tennies with a suit. Besides, in a bit I’m going to the park to have lunch with Cat.”

  “I just had lunch with Cat; she’s fine. No, really,” he added at her frown. “She didn’t mind bag lunches at 10:30 in the morning. Also, she’s really carrot crazy.” That probably wasn’t the only kind of crazy she was. It was just too weird that the former mayor of Boston spent gobs of time loitering in a small Chicago park with an Insighter doomed to be murdered.

  He no longer thought she was homeless; he decided Cat had a home that she didn’t want to go to. There was definitely more to her story and he was dying to hear all about it. He’d hinted that he’d be interested and had gotten, “You’re as subtle as a pimple on a dick,” as a retort. Archer had tactfully changed the subject.

  “So like I was saying, one of your patients is probably going to kill you.”

  Leah groaned a little under her breath and crooked a finger, like she was going to lead him to her office to make out.

  “Idiot,” she breathed.

  Or maybe not. But he was saved when one of the patients, a pale young man in his early thirties, impeccably dressed in gray from neck to heels, nodded at once. “Oh, sure,” he said, “I can see that.”

  “What?” Leah rounded on the patient, then turned back to Archer. “This is not the appropriate place.”

  “Yeah,” the other patient added, closing last month’s Vogue. She was a cheerful-looking brunette about Archer’s age, in knee-length denim shorts and a black T-shirt with the slogan “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. And spiders.” “She’s awful. Impatient and chilly and sometimes I get the vibe like she’s just really, really bored with everything coming out of my mouth.”

  Leah said nothing, just rubbed her forehead and glared at the carpet.

  “During one of my sessions I get a little PO’d,” Gray Guy said, clearly ready to bond with Spider Shirt Girl over Leah’s awfulness, “and called her a chilly twat—”

  “Hey!” Archer yelped.

  “—sorry.” He held his hands up, placating. “It was a rotten thing to say and I’m not proud of it, but I did and it was out there, and she, Ms. Nazir, she just blinks at me real slow, like an owl, and says ‘chilly was unnecessary.’ I felt like I wasn’t even in the room for her.”

  “It is weird that that’s the word she picked up on.”

  “Did you prefer I jumped up and stabbed you?” Leah cried, aggrieved.

  “No,” Archer told him. “You definitely don’t want her to do that.” Thank God, he was a fast healer. The wounds were still sore, but he was off the prescription pain meds.

  “It was only because she told me I used to be William Simmons. Imperial wizard of the KKK,” Gray Suit went on at the raised eyebrows, indignant. “Which is just bullshit. I like black people! African-Americans, I mean.”

  “Oh,” Spider Shirt Girl said.

  “I’m sorry?” Archer added, not sure of the etiquette of the situation. Sure, most people knew who they’d been before, but it was considered private business. People didn’t generally walk up to a stranger and open with, “Did you know I used to cut Washington’s hair?”

  “And she was just so cold about it,” Gray Suit complained. “Just, ho-hum, you were a real shit in a former life, which is why you’re a real shit now, don’t worry, we take Blue Cross/Blue Shield, see you next week.”

  “Again: should I have stabbed you instead?”

  “That’s not a rhetorical question,” Archer added. “So don’t be fooled.”

  “I like you okay, Ms. Nazir, but your bedside manner’s pretty, um, shitty,” Spider Shirt Girl said, slightly apologetic.

  “I’ve dealt with warmer morticians,” Gray Suit added.

  “Then why are you here?” Leah snapped.

  “Oh. Well.” Spider Shirt Girl traded glances with Gray Suit; they shrugged in unison. “You’re the best. Most other Insighters have to frig around for months or years before they figure out the problem. Or the past life causing the problem, I guess. You’re quicker. So . . .” She spread her hands in a “what are you gonna do?” gesture. It was like picking a dentist based on speed. If you had to have a stranger doing awful things to your mouth with pointy sharp things, it should be a stranger good at her job, and who cares if she loves small talk?

  “Hmmm.” Leah still had that adorably pissy look on her face, but sounded mollified. And “you’re the best” didn’t do her justice. Leah was almost infamous in her field. People had written papers about her; he’d read several while in her mother’s employ. Funny how none of them picked up on the former child star angle, though.

  “But I don’t want to kill you, Ms. Nazir,” Spider Shirt Girl said, almost as an afterthought. “That’s what we’re talking about, right? Killing you?”

  “Right! You’re exactly right, excellent.” Archer was grateful Spider Shirt Girl was getting him back on track. “Anyway, I had some ideas about that. Maybe we can talk at lunch?”

  “You already had lunch with Cat.” Leah, he could tell, was still a little peeved. He figured it wasn’t that she hadn’t known she could be a little, uh, disconnected from her patients. But that was a lot to take in at once, and in just those couple of minutes. Anyone would feel ganged up on. “And I have patients who loathe me waiting.”

  “It’s not loathing,” Gray Suit piped up, no doubt trying to be helpful. “It’s more like general dislike.”

  “With a dash of unconscious scorn.”

  “Yep, that’s it,” Gray Suit said with an enthusiastic nod. “That’s exactly it.” He was eyeing Spider Shirt Girl with not a little admiration. “That’s really the exact . . . do you want to grab coffee or something? After?”

  “Dunno. I used to be African-American. Is that gonna be a problem?”

  “Hell, no. I used to run the KKK. I think we can have coffee together without a hate crime happening.”

  They beamed at each other.

  “This is like a cell phone commercial,” Leah snapped. “A bad one.”

  “Oh, shush,” Archer said, catching her hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. “It’s romantic as shit. And kind of makes you Cupid.�
��

  She muttered something under her breath which sounded a lot like “oh, fuck me,” but probably wasn’t. But she didn’t kick him out, and even found a genuine smile for Gray Suit, who was her next patient.

  “True love,” Archer said, settling down across from Spider Shirt Girl, who’d picked her Vogue back up. “Doncha love it?”

  “It’s just coffee.”

  “I wasn’t talking about you guys.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  No question, no question at all, but it was one of the oddest meetings she’d ever endured, and she had helped Karen McNamara (who had been Richard McDonald, founder of McDonald’s) get over her coulrophobia (fear of clowns). That had been a strange session; she’d never again be able to hear the ahh—ooo-gaa! those old-fashioned bicycle horns made without shuddering. Thank goodness, she had no children; a single visit to Chuck E. Cheese now had the potential to send her screaming into the parking lot.

  But this one was stranger. Most likely, she assumed, because it wasn’t about a patient she could reduce to a pile of paper in a chart. That was always comforting, and it was wrong to feel that way, she knew. Unfortunately, it was the only way she knew how to do it. Much stranger, of course, to be the subject of discussion.

  They were compiling a list of people who wanted to murder her.

  Also: the Archer factor. That made it very odd indeed, but wonderful, too.

  “Okay, so, top of the list: are you treating any psychos who are really into knives? That’s usually how you’re killed, right? Stabbed? God, I can’t believe I just asked you that.”

  Leah shook her head and helped herself to another Tootsie Roll. Archer had quite the sweet tooth; his pockets were often bulging with candy. Funny how they had not known each other long and still there were things about him she felt safe enough to take for granted. Sometimes she forgot her plan was to get him to lower his defenses so she could ruthlessly molest him, then run off and get murdered.

  Well. Not the last bit, obviously. Probably. Maybe?

  “Even if I were, I couldn’t discuss it with you, and you know that perfectly well,” she said, nibbling on the candy. Archer teased her because she savored Tootsie Rolls as opposed to popping them in her mouth and chomping away.

  “Yeah, I get that, but we have to start somewhere. I’m betting remembering who killed you in other lives doesn’t much help when it comes to finding the killer in this one. Right?”

  “Right.” She was a little startled at the obvious question, then reminded herself he was life-blind. He had no frame of reference. At all. Astonishing and . . . was that pity? Might be, yes. She squashed it. She did not want to feel pity for Archer. “And sometimes I never knew his name, or hers. Sometimes I never even saw his face. But I’m not an utter imbecile, Archer. Of course I keep an eye out for any obvious psychotics. But my case load tends to be helping patients through phobias. I’m not treating anyone who has done anything worse than having sex in a public place.” Except, she recalled, for Chart #6116, assaulting children, which escalated to murdering them. But she wasn’t chart #6116’s type. Ah, God, what was her name? Angie something. No, Anne. No, Alice! Yes: Alice Delaney, Chart #6116. “There’s an occasional exception, but I do try to be careful.”

  And it hasn’t helped once, you silly bitch!

  “Oh, man, now I officially hate Insighter client privilege. Because you must have some great stories.”

  “I do,” she assured him, half-finished with her first Tootsie Roll. “Marvelous ones.”

  He was slouched on the couch in her office, looking effortlessly younger than she was in dark blue jeans, a navy blue button-down, sleeves rolled to the elbows

  (who knew fuzzy forearms could be such a turn-on?)

  and loafers without socks. He looked like a college freshman.

  It was the smiling, she decided, finishing Tootsie Roll #1. He had an open face and you could read everything on it and he was just . . . just sunny and uncomplicated. She was beginning to understand why the life-blind were so consistently patronized. There, there, don’t worry your pretty little head about bad things because you can’t ever understand your own past and thus won’t ever understand your present. Poor baby.

  Ugh. Archer was to be admired. And never, ever pitied. For the tenth time in ten days, she wondered again about her theory. About how the life-blind perhaps weren’t blind at all. At least, not all of them. But if she was right, it would be an uphill battle. An up-mountain battle, about as easy as persuading people the tooth fairy was real.

  (“Your teeth were gone in the morning, right? And there was money under your pillow?”

  “I need more proof than that.”

  “I don’t have any.”)

  “Are you okay?”

  “Of course.”

  He arched dark brows. “Because you’re attacking that Tootsie Roll like they’re making sugar illegal at midnight.”

  “I crave fake chocolate that looks not unlike petrified cat feces.”

  “Aw, Leah!” He tossed a pen at her and she, leaning on her desk with her ankles crossed as she masticated, easily avoided it. “Have a heart. I love those things. I don’t want to think about cat poop when I’m contemplating dessert.”

  “Agreed. I withdraw the comment. Want your pen back?”

  He shook his head, looked down at his notepad, then back up at her. His eyes, blue and green, watched her. “Now don’t get mad . . .”

  “Hmm. I assume you’re about to tell me something infuriating.”

  “. . . because on short acquaintance I like her . . .”

  “Ah. You think the mayor of Boston might harbor murder in her heart.”

  “Well . . .”

  “And so she does.” Leah smiled. “Just not for me. Journalists, however, are not completely safe from her.”

  “She’s not a patient, right?”

  Leah shook her head. “I would never insult her by implying there are things wrong with her I could perhaps fix.”

  “But there are things wrong with her and maybe you could fix them.” He shrugged. “None of my business, which makes my next question kind of awkward: can you tell me her story?”

  “Oh yes. And it’s a good one.”

  “Yeah, I figured it must be.” He patted the space beside him on the couch. “Stop leaning all sexy-like on your desk and come here and sit all sexy-like on the couch instead.”

  “Your seductive smoothness has melted my reserve,” she said with a straight face, then ruined it by giggling.

  “God, you are so gorgeous when you laugh.”

  “Doubtful.” But she went to him anyway, and sat beside him. “Do you know how difficult it is, still is, even in this century, for women to excel at politics?”

  “Even if I do, you’re gonna tell me anyway. Right?”

  “Well . . .”

  TWENTY-THREE

  Catherine Carey was the first woman elected mayor of Boston, and when the votes were tallied you could hear the sighs of relief all over the city. The incumbent had to go.

  Mayor Carey ran as an independent and soundly kicked ass for several reasons. She was beautiful (yes, what diff, except in politics it helps if you’re hot, it helps a lot), a local (born in Danvers, Massachusetts, home of the former Danvers State Insane Asylum), intelligent (MBA from Harvard Business School, which proved nothing, but an IQ of 146, which did), charismatic (Miss Danvers, 1993; Miss Teen Massachusetts, 1994), and compassionate (she ran her first blood drive at age fourteen; she mailed her lemonade stand money to starving children in Africa).

  Also, her Republican opponent, the incumbent, had just been indicted for taking a bribe to push through the Big Dig II Program (“Now Bigger and Diggier!”), and her Democratic opponent burst into tears during their televised debate (“But I don’t know how we’re going to fix the tax situation! Stop picking on me!”).

 
; (It later came to light that the man had stopped taking his antidepressants several weeks earlier, which earned him a compassionate scolding from Mayor-Elect Carey.)

  As expected, Mayor Carey wasted no time rolling up her figurative sleeves (and occasionally her literal sleeves) and jumping in with both feet (also literally as well as figuratively). In her first year of office she decreased government spending by eight percent (hey, you try it), coaxed two local zillionaires to fund the renovation for several local athletic fields, and wasn’t a racist.

  The last one proved to be her political ruin. While going over the city’s proposed cuts to the Boston Public Library budget, Mayor Carey objected strongly, probably because “cuts” really meant “demolition.”

  “I don’t care about Kindles or Nooks or Wikipedia or downloads. We will always need a library. Boston’s citizens will always need a place to find a planet’s worth of information for free. Rich, poor, other, they’ll always need a place that’s warm in winter and cool in summer and full of books and computers and maps and magazines and government forms and reading nooks. It is every citizen’s birthright and we are not tearing it down because the Internet exists. Bad enough you want to be so niggardly with the budget.”

  Of course: uproar. The mayor assumed it was because she was digging in her heels on the budget.

  It wasn’t.

  “But niggardly isn’t a racial slur.”

  RACIST MAYOR REFUSES TO APOLOGIZE

  “But that isn’t what niggardly means.”

  MAYOR DENIES BEING DISGUSTING BIGOT

  “It means ‘stingy’ or ‘miserly.’ It’s from an Old Norse word: ‘Nigla.’ It means to make a big deal out of a small thing. Kind of like what’s happening right now.”

  RACIST MAYOR THINKS BIGOTED REMARKS “NO BIG DEAL”

  “For God’s sake.”

  RACIST MAYOR TRIES TO COMBINE CHURCH AND STATE

  “Fine. I apologize if my correct use of an adjective that isn’t a racial slur offends anyone who can’t take five seconds to look it up in Merriam-Webster. Hey, you know where you can do that? The fucking public library!”