Then she saw Gil’s massive phallic-shaped amethyst crystal.
Someone has a dick substitute, she laughed to herself.
Gil appeared carrying a silver tray with a teapot and two cups sitting on matching saucers. How quaint, thought Ana. Who uses saucers nowadays?
“Did you know that in the Middle Ages mugwort was believed to have magical powers that protected people against illness, wild beasts, and demonic possession?” he said. He placed the tray on the reading table and poured the tea into the cups. Long tendrils of steam rose up into the air. “Today, it is said that a cup of mugwort tea before bedtime will encourage prophetic dreams.”
Was he reading this shit straight out of a book? This was weird.
“Many societies use mugwort as a smoking herb,” he continued. “Before the introduction of hops, it was used to flavor beer. It is also used as an ingredient in many Asian dishes.” He handed her a cup. “Despite its use as a flavoring, mugwort has a slightly bitter taste, so I’ve added a teaspoon of honey to help it glide down your throat.”
And cover up the taste of the date rape drug, Ana thought.
Gil raised his cup into the air.
“Živeli!” he cried in a toast.
Ana looked a little alarmed.
“You are Serbian, Mrs. Novakov, aren’t you?”
“Yes...um, da!”
“Dobro došla!” he exclaimed excitedly. “Pođite sa mnom!” he said as he touched the small of her back and guided her to a seat at the reading table. “It just so happens that I’m fluent in Serbian. I spent a year living in beautiful Belgrade but I traveled the country extensively. I fondly remember exploring the underground tunnels near the Petrovaradin Fortress in Novi Sad, strolling along the promenade of the Danube in Veliko Gradiste, and trekking the Davolja Varos on the Planina Radan near Leskovac.”
Ana tried to look as though she knew what the fuck he was talking about. Both of her parents were Serbian but she was born and raised in the United States. She was an All-American girl. She’d never even been to Serbia. She knew nothing about the country other than the details of the fake story that Claudia has concocted for her.
“Do you want me to conduct the reading in Serbian or English?” asked Gil.
Ana could speak the language, but she was a little rusty. She certainly didn’t speak Serbian as fluently as someone who had just emigrated from Serbia to the United States. Her mother always nagged at her about her bad pronunciation.
“English, please. I vant to learn him better.”
“Very well,” said Gil. “…Now, let’s connect to the energy of the spirit world.”
He took a seat and lit a tall beige-colored candle sitting in the middle of the reading table. The scent of sandalwood filled the air.
Gil closed his eyes, took several slow, deep breaths and opened his eyes again.
“Your husband is here with us now…”
Claudia had been listening to the entire conversation from her apartment with a huge smile on her face.
“Gotcha!” she cried triumphantly.
Gil was so predictable.
Then the line went dead at her end.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” she cried. “What happened to the call? It’s dropped out!”
She frantically tried to call Ana back but the line was busy.
What was going on?
“Your husband is here with us now…” Gil repeated.
This time his voice was dripping with sarcasm.
What was going on?
“Your husband isn’t here with us now,” he snarled. “But you knew that already, didn’t you?” He stood up from his seat, rested his arms on the table and leaned in, glaring at her. “I know you’re not a widow. In fact, you’ve never even been married.”
The blood drained away from her face.
“Your name isn’t Nina Novakov. Cut the bullshit. Drop the shitty accent. I know why you’re really here…”
Gil came towards her. He loomed over her, and she could see the fury in his piercing blue eyes.
“Claudia sent you here, didn’t she?”
“Y-y-yes,” Ana stammered in fear.
“The two of you thought you’d catch me in a lie and expose me to the media, didn’t you?”
“Y-y-yes.”
“Rest assured. No one can hear you now.”
What had she gotten herself into?
He paced around her menacingly.
“Hmm… What shall I do with you?”
She opened her clutch furtively and reached for her pepper spray “lipstick”. She would spray him in those creepy blue eyes, kick him in the nuts and get herself out of there as quickly as she could.
“So…Ana… I believe your name is?”
She nodded. How did he know that?
“Now that we’ve been formally introduced, I’m going to give you a real reading,” he said. “I’ll tell you what you really want to know.”
He took his seat again calmly.
She breathed a quiet sigh of relief and closed her clutch purse.
“But I sense that you’re a skeptic,” he said with a frown. “I need you to keep an open mind, Ana. I can’t read someone who has a negative attitude. You must be open to the experience.”
“I am,” she said.
Her cover was blown but this was still a great opportunity to test his psychic abilities. She resolved to answer only “yes” or “no” to his questions to not give him any more information he could use against her.
Gil closed his eyes and took several slow, deep breaths.
He opened his eyes.
“I see an elderly lady standing beside you. Have you a grandmother in spirit?”
“Yes.”
It was safe for him to assume that by Ana’s age her grandmothers would have passed, she thought.
“This is your maternal grandmother. She is short and plump. She has long salt and pepper-colored hair that she wears piled on top of her head in a bun.”
“Yes.”
That sounded like a description of everyone’s grandmother.
“…I’m getting a name beginning with “Z”… I think it’s Zora. No…it’s Zorka.”
“Yes.”
How did he know that? Did Gil see the fake website before Claudia got around to changing “Zorka” to “Anya”?
“Keep an open mind, Ana,” Gil scolded her as if he could hear her thoughts. “I’m sensing your negative vibrations. They’re blocking my energy.”
Skeptics were supposed to keep an open mind, so that’s what she would try to do.
“I’m getting that your grandmother wasn’t like other grandmothers,” Gil continued. “She didn’t knit sweaters or bake chocolate chip cookies,” he said.
Boy, that was true. She wasn’t the kind of grandma who’d make you a peanut butter and jelly sandwich when you came to visit. There was never food in her fridge, only bottles of wine.
Gil sniffed the air.
“I smell alcohol,” he said. “I sense that Zorka was… an alcoholic.”
“Yes,” Ana confirmed in surprise.
Was he really reading her mind?
She could barely remember a time when her grandmother didn’t have a glass of wine in one hand and a cigarette in the other, even early in the morning. Her kisses always smelled like alcohol and her clothes reeked of stale cigarette smoke.
“…I’m feeling nauseous,” said Gil as he held his stomach. “I feel like I’m going to be sick…”
He breathed deeply until the feeling passed. Ana thought his skin and eyes suddenly looked a little yellow, like he had jaundice.
“…I feel that Zorka developed liver damage…due to alcoholism…”
“Yes.”
Zorka started drinking when she lost many friends and family members during the Yugoslav wars. When she became sick, the family tried an intervention to stop her drinking but she was unable to quit. Zorka began to lie about her habit and took to hiding her alcoholism from her family, her friends,
and even from herself. When Ana made a surprise visit to her grandmother’s house one day she discovered an empty bottle of vodka hidden behind a cushion on the couch.
“Liver disease is what took her from you…”
“That’s right,” said Ana quietly.
Suddenly she felt like she wanted to burst into tears. The reading reopened an old wound. Her grandmother’s alcoholism had destroyed her family, especially her mother. Ana liked an occasional drink, but she hid it from Slob who believed that anyone who drank at all was a raging alcoholic.
Gil looked like he was listening to a voice that Ana couldn’t hear.
“Zorka keeps asking a question… Where is my necklace?”
Ana stroked the fake sapphire pendant around her neck.
“She’s showing me that you normally wear another pendant,” said Gil. “This other necklace is a family heirloom, not a cheap sapphire rip-off.”
Ana reached into her clutch and pulled out the necklace she normally wore. It was an onyx Art Deco pendant in the shape of a fan that dangled from a yellow gold chain. She held it up for Gil to see and it swung from side to side like a pendulum.
“This was my great-grandmother’s necklace. When she passed, my grandmother wore it until she died. Then mom gave it to me. I wear it always.”
“Always…except when you’re trying to trick me,” said Gil with a grin.
Ana blushed. She felt stupid for trying to pull the wool over his eyes.
Gil looked like he was straining to hear something.
“Zorka is fading… She has a final message. She says she loves you…and…zvini, maca.”
Ana’s jaw dropped. Zvini, maca means I’m sorry, kitten, in Serbian. Maca was Zorka’s pet name for Ana! To her, this was undeniable proof that Gil had spoken to her dead grandmother.
If Gil could really talk to the dead then there was someone else she needed to hear from desperately, her father, Dragan.
“Mr. Godsend? Could you please… contact my father?”
He shook his head.
“I’m not a DJ. I don’t take requests. I talk with whoever needs to come through.”
Her shoulders fell and she looked at the floor.
Gil’s voice softened.
“But let me see if he communicates with us.”
He closed his eyes and breathed in and out deeply. Then he opened his eyes.
He looked confused.
“Are you sure he crossed over?”
Ana almost laughed.
“Of course! He died 27 years ago.”
Gil frowned.
“I don’t feel your father’s energy on the other side… But that’s because he’s not on the other side. Your father’s still here… My spirit guides are telling me… Dragan isn’t dead…”
“What?” she screamed.
“Your father is alive.”
“I… can’t believe that!”
“It’s true,” said Gil. “Your mother kicked him out of home long ago. They tell me he’s alive and well and living somewhere in southern Florida.”
Ana felt like she was going to faint. She must have looked faint too because Gil fetched a glass of water for her. She took a few sips and a few deep breaths.
“How do I verify this?”
“Call your mother and ask her.”
Gil left her alone to make the call in private.
Ana took her phone out of her clutch and realized that her connection with Claudia had dropped off. Damn! She’d hoped that Claudia was hearing this conversation. It was proof that Gil was psychic.
Ana called her mother. As the phone rang she took a deep breath.
“Hello?”
She didn’t know how to ask this question, so she just blurted it out.
“Mom…is Dad still alive?”
Slob burst into hysterical tears. This was usually her admission of wrongdoing. Ana had to wait for her to calm down.
“Yes,” Slob finally admitted. “How did you find out?” she sobbed.
“Gil Godsend told me.”
This set off a new wave of sobs.
“I’m wery sorry, Ana,” she mumbled.
“Why did you tell me that Dad was dead all these years?”
“He vas dead to me!” she howled mournfully. “He vas drinking. I kick him out.”
Ana had so many questions but now wasn’t the time to ask them.
“We’ll talk when I get home,” she said, and then she hung up.
She was in a state of shock. She didn’t remember too many things about her father. He was a handsome man, with kind brown eyes. He had a big belly and he liked to eat. He had a hearty laugh. She was devastated when he died. That is, when she believed he had died. Now that she thought about it, there were little signs here and there that now made sense. There were letters that arrived for her around her birthday that disappeared. She would hear her mother on the phone crying, “Don’t call again!” before she hung up. There were times when her mother referred to her father in the present tense, and then corrected herself. Ana always assumed it was Slob’s bad grammar.
Her father was alive!
Gil came back into the room with two mugs of coffee.
“I believe you prefer this to mugwort tea,” he said as he placed a cup in front of her. “I promise there aren’t any date rape drugs in this drink,” he said with a grin.
Ana smiled. She felt guilty for trying to sting him.
“Thank you,” she said as she took the coffee gratefully. “Thank you for everything. If it wasn’t for you I would never have known that my father is still… alive.”
This just didn’t feel real to her yet. She started to cry softly.
“Hey, now. This is good news,” Gil said gently.
He handed her a box of tissues. She took one and dabbed at her eyes.
Gil picked up Ana’s necklace.
“We’d better put this back on or your grandmother will be angry,” he said.
She swept up her long hair and he unclasped the fake sapphire pendant and put the fan pendant around her neck. His tender touch sent a tiny wave of electricity through her body. At first, Gil seemed like an arrogant prick. Then he’d amazed her with all he knew about her grandmother… and her father.
Her father was alive!
Now, Gil seemed sweet and caring, almost chivalrous, and most definitely psychic! She could really go for a guy like this. He was hot. He was wealthy. He could even speak Serbian. Could she convince her mother that he was Serbian?
She studied Gil’s blue eyes, as though by searching them she could understand him.
“You’re a very surprising man, Gil Godsend,” she said, using her sultry gaze to its full effect. “…You’re also a man I’d like to get to know better…”
She touched his hand lightly.
“I’m afraid Claudia has given you the wrong impression about me,” he said. “I never date my clients.”
Ana laughed.
“I don’t think ‘date’ is the word she used!” she said as she drew quotation marks in the air with her fingers. “I hear you…um… sleep with them.”
“That isn’t me,” he said with a frown, but without a trace of irony in his voice. “At any rate, it’s not ethical for you and I to do anything,” he said firmly. “I must abide by the psychic code of conduct. However…if we’d met under different circumstances…”
His voice trailed off.
“What do you mean, that it wasn’t you having sex with those women?” she asked.
“You must go, Ana,” he said abruptly. “It’s been a pleasure, but please excuse me as I have a business meeting to attend.”
“Okay,” she said reluctantly.
Ana stood up from her seat and he walked her to the door. She handed him her business card.
“If you ever change your mind, call me.”
“Doviđenja, Ana,” he said with his grin.
“Goodbye, Gil,” she said, shooting him a final sultry glance.
Ana left his house and wa
lked back to her car. She saw Claudia’s car parked beside her. Claudia rolled down her window and called out to her.
“Our call dropped as soon as Gil said, “Your husband is here with us now”,” she said in exasperation. “He must have used a cell blocker. Are you okay?”
“So you didn’t overhear the amazing psychic reading I had with Gil?”
“What?”
“As you know, I was very skeptical of Gil, but he’s convinced me that he can talk to the dead. He knew personal details about my family that no one else knows.”
How could Ana have made a complete turnaround from skeptic to believer?
“Maybe he found this information on the net?” suggested Claudia.
“I work in cyber security,” Ana reminded her. “There’s no trace of me online.”
“Okaay.” Claudia was unconvinced. “But did Gil proposition you?”
“No. To be fair, I came onto him but he rejected me because I was a client!”
Claudia was surprised that Gil didn’t try to come onto Ana, but he must have known that he was under the microscope…
“I still don’t believe in psychics, but I believe in Gil Godsend,” Ana said. “Anyway, I need to go home to have a little talk with my mother.”
She hopped into her car and drove off.
Claudia sat frozen in her car. She was flabbergasted. How could this sting have gone so horribly wrong? Was Gil bugging her office and phone so he could eavesdrop on her conversations to find out about her plans? Didn’t Ana say that her mother had a psychic reading with Gil years ago and that he probably did a hot reading? Perhaps he used the information from that session for his reading today with Ana? Maybe he was keeping files on his clients just like the old-time psychics used to do. The reading clearly hit a raw nerve with Ana and she was far too emotional to think clearly at this time. Claudia would talk with her about it later.
Gil wasn’t psychic but he still managed to bewitch people, she thought.
Claudia jumped when she realized that someone was peering into her car window.
It was Gil.
“Hello, Claudia,” he said cheerily. His hair was blowing about in the breeze and with his white-toothed grin he looked like a model in a toothpaste commercial.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she said.
This day couldn’t get any worse.
“Ana is a charming lady. Thank you for sending her to me,” Gil said with a wink. “Now, have you thought any more about my job offer?” he asked. “We make a better team than we do adversaries.”
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