by John Coyne
“But, Eileen, you weren’t! You were the smartest person in our class. Brighter than Mark Simon, even! And you were captain of the basketball team.”
Eileen started to laugh, “Jennifer, I can’t believe you still remember all that stuff.”
“I was jealous of you, that’s why.”
“Oh, don’t be silly. You were going out with Andy Porterfield, and everyone on Long Island wanted to marry him.”
“Well, thank God I didn’t. He’s on his second wife, I’m told.”
“His third. We see him all the time at the club. But what I’m trying to say is that in high school you were having a good time. I wasn’t, and the only reason I even played basketball was because Mr. Donaldson put me on the team after I tried to commit suicide.”
“Suicide?” Jennifer whispered, remembering now the long-ago rumors about Eileen.
“I’m sorry. Of course, you didn’t know.” She reached over and touched Jennifer’s arm. “I was jealous of you, Jennifer. You were the great social one. You had all the friends. My teenage years were a tormented time in my life, and Kathy Dart, or really, Habasha, has explained to me why I was so unhappy, why my body was out of sync with my spirit life. So I went to her. There was a conference like this being held in San Francisco, and I flew out for it.”
“Flew all the way to California just to see her?”
Eileen nodded. “I had to know,” she said thoughtfully, pausing and looking off across the room.
Jennifer stopped eating and watched Eileen. How rested the woman looked, how satisfied, as if all her responsibilities had been lifted off her shoulders.
“I’ve never been a religious person. I mean, I was raised a Unitarian, which isn’t much of a religion, but when Kathy began to speak as Habasha…”
“He’s not Kathy Dart.”
Eileen nodded. “They are connected, as Kathy said. He was once her warrior lover. And they were pirates together. Kathy also told me that she once had his child in another lifetime. They are soul mates, from the same oversoul. And he speaks through her.”
“So he doesn’t sleep with her; he uses her body, instead.”
“Okay, be a smart ass,” Eileen replied with an indulgent smile. “If you’d only give Habasha a chance, you’d see.”
“See what?”
“See that he can help you,” Eileen said softly, not looking up from her plate.
“I didn’t realize I needed help,” Jennifer answered, annoyed.
“We all need help, Jennifer,” Eileen replied without raising her voice. “And I think if you gave Kathy Dart and Habasha a chance, they might explain to you why you two had such a strong attraction to each other at the session this afternoon.”
“What are you talking about? What do you mean?” Jennifer sat back and stared at Eileen.
“Kathy Dart asked about you,” she explained.
“Yes? What do you mean, asked about me?” Her voice rose and she felt her hands begin to tremble.
“She spoke to me after this afternoon’s session. She said she had a profound reaction from seeing you.” Eileen was watching Jennifer as she spoke.
Jennifer nodded.
“What did it mean?” she asked.
“Kathy asked me to tell you that she senses that she knows you, from a past life, of course, and that she thinks you should speak directly to Habasha.”
“Don’t be silly,” Jennifer answered at once.
“Kathy said to tell you that you are capable of a great deal in this life, and to tell you also that you are involved in a romantic situation that is not spiritually good for you.”
“What!” Jennifer was outraged, and also frightened of what Eileen might know.
Eileen shook her head. “I’m only telling you what Kathy said. She wanted me to invite you specially to her session this evening.” Eileen paused. “And she said to tell you that Danny is fine. That he has another life now, a happy life, and that he didn’t suffer.”
Jennifer threw down her napkin. She couldn’t eat. “I don’t want to hear any more of this silliness. I’m not interested in your seances and spirit entities.” She was furious at Eileen for mentioning her dead brother. They had been in junior high school when Danny was killed in Vietnam.
Her sudden rage made her dizzy. She tried to find the waitress to pay the check but couldn’t. As she glanced around the room, a glowing ball of brilliant light caught her eye. It was outside the windows; she leaned closer to the cold glass and squinted into the darkness.
Someone—something—was walking round the swimming pool. It was a man—a small, short-limbed man, moving clumsily, like a Cro-Magnon.
“Look!” Jennifer blurted out. “What’s that?”
“What’s what?” Eileen asked.
Jennifer looked back and nothing was there. The light must have been playing tricks on her.
Jennifer stood, dropping her napkin into her chair. “Excuse me, I can’t take any more of this metaphysical crap.” She glanced back out the window. The glowing light was gone from the terrace.
“Don’t be afraid,” Eileen said softly. “It will all work out. Kathy said it would.” She smiled up at Jennifer, looking conspiratorial.
“I’m not afraid,” Jennifer answered back. She opened her purse and withdrew a twenty-dollar bill. “The waitress can keep the change,” she said, throwing it down.
“Jennifer, you’re getting yourself upset over nothing. I’m sorry I frightened you.”
“You haven’t upset me, Eileen. I’m just sorry you’ve gotten yourself all tied up with these people. I always thought you were too smart for such… bullshit.” She spun about and strode from the restaurant.
She walked through the lobby and stopped at the desk for her messages. Tom would have called, she knew, to let her know when he would be back at the hotel.
“‘Having drinks after dinner with Yale buddies. Back late. T.,’” the clerk read, then looked up at Jennifer. “Would you like a copy?”
“No. No thank you,” Jennifer told him, and turning away from the counter, she went up to her hotel room alone.
CHAPTER FOUR
JENNIFER LIFTED THE New York Times off the mat and stepped back inside her apartment. It was Saturday morning, the day after she returned from Washington. Closing the door, she flipped the paper open to the second section and scanned the page as she walked down the hall and into the kitchen. It was not yet eight o’clock, and the building was silent. Tom was still asleep. She had just spread the newspaper on the kitchen counter when she spotted a headline:
SPIRITUAL GUIDE FOR YUPPIES
Jennifer stopped to read the first couple of paragraphs.
Channeling, a metaphysical quest for truth and wisdom that sprang to life in California, has found its way east. Ms. Phoebe Fisher, who holds a doctorate from the Metaphysics University of San Jose, is currently dispensing metaphysical truths from her West Side apartment. According to Ms. Fisher, the “truth giver” is a spirit named Dance, who is a “sixth-density entity from Dorran, the seventh star of the seventh sister within the Pleiades system. He lives eight hundred years in our own future,” according to the blond and beautiful Ms. Fisher.
Jennifer perched on the counter stool and pulled her robe closer. It was cold in the kitchen, and she wanted her morning coffee, but first she had to read this article.
Recently, a poll by the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Council indicated that 67 percent of Americans believe they have had a psychic experience. Many of these people are calling on the spirit world for solace and advice, using mediums, or channelers, who have established contact with “entities” from the past. Sometimes these “entities” beam down from outer space, such as Ms. Fisher’s “sixth-density entity,” Dance.
“I was walking through the Sheep Meadow in Central Park on a hot Sunday afternoon last August,” recalls Ms. Fisher. “When I looked up into the western sky, I saw this tall, elegant figure wrapped in a glow of brilliant light. I stopped in my tracks, r
ight in the middle of the Sheep Meadow, with people sunbathing all around me, and I said out loud, ‘Yes.’ Yes, for I knew he was coming for me.”
“And he said to me from across the meadow, ‘Phoebe, you are beautiful. You are a beautiful person.’ I felt this enormous’ rush of cold air push against me. I was nearly knocked over, but I managed to nod. I couldn’t speak. But I knew he or she—they don’t have gender in the Pleiades system—wanted to use my body. He wanted me to bring the message of peace and love to our world, and I agreed to lend him my human form. We didn’t have to speak. I knew telepathically. And then I felt another rush of air, but this time it was blazing hot. Later, I realized he had settled himself into my home, my physical body.”
Jennifer shook her head, smiling to herself. She’d clip the article and send it to Eileen Gorman, she decided. Since storming out of the restaurant on Thursday night, Jennifer had been feeling guilty. This would make a nice peace offering, she decided, and a way of getting back in touch with her old friend. She slipped off the stool and went to the stove to boil water for coffee. She heard Tom then in the other room, padding across the floor to the bathroom. She glanced at the clock. It was only eight o’clock. Why was he up so early on a Saturday? He seldom told her his plans, and in the first days of their relationship had tried to make a joke of his secrecy, saying he would let her know “on a need-to-know basis.” She had thought that funny then. But not anymore.
She put the kettle on the stove and then scooped several spoonfuls of fresh coffee beans into the grinder. The little machine roared in the silent kitchen, and it was only after she had dumped the finely ground beans into the coffee filter that she realized Tom had entered the room. He was standing at the counter, glancing through the paper. When he didn’t look up or acknowledge her, she said coolly, “And good morning to you.”
“Good morning,” he answered. “Sorry. I was just checking to see if Giuliani made any statements. There was a rumor in the building yesterday that he was going to announce for the Senate.” He smiled across at her, trying to make amends.
“Well, it would be nice if you just said hello, that’s all.” She poured boiling water onto the filter.
“You know I never have much to say in the morning.”
“I wouldn’t think a simple ‘good morning’ is too much for a big assistant attorney general like yourself.” She added more water.
“Did you see this piece about the new yuppie fad?” Tom asked, as if to change the subject.
“Be careful what you say about yuppies. They’re us.” She glanced over at him. He was wearing only the bottoms of his pajamas and was standing at the counter scratching the thick dark hair on his chest.
“You may be, but I’m not.” He looked up from the newspaper. “Any coffee?”
“In a moment, sire.”
“Just asking, Jennifer. Just asking.” He grabbed the sports section of the Times and went over to the breakfast table, sitting down in the soft wash of pale winter sun to concentrate on the basketball scores.
Jennifer finished making coffee, poured Tom a cup, and added a splash of half-and-half. She carried his cup to the table and placed it down next to him.
“Thanks,” he said.
Jennifer slid down across from him at the table, satisfied for the moment with the taste of coffee and the slight warmth of the winter sun. She studied Tom while he read. She could see only his right profile—his better side, as he liked to say, because when he was still in prep school, his nose had been broken in a lacrosse game and badly reset. This morning his better side was shadowed with an overnight growth of beard. His long black hair tumbled over his forehead and into his eyes; it curled around his ear lobes. He looked like an unmade bed, she thought fondly.
She sipped her coffee and looked out the window at the snowbound Brooklyn Heights street where a few early risers were trudging through the snow. She wondered if this was the right time to tell Tom she wanted either to get married or break off the relationship. Her friend, Margit, had warned her about men like Tom who were afraid of commitment. She knew she couldn’t keep on living half a life with him. And besides, she knew she wanted to have children before it was too late.
“Are you okay?” he asked, glancing up. His cool gray eyes stared at her with the same compassion he might give the train schedule.
“I have no idea,” she answered truthfully, staring at the snow that covered the street like the hard frosting of a day-old wedding cake.
“Your job?” he asked.
Jennifer shook her head. “My life.”
“Your life, huh?” He nodded to the Times column. “Maybe you could use some spiritual guidance, one of these whatever-they-are.”
“Please, Tom, I’m being serious.” She looked straight at him. She was never any good at fooling people.
“You mean, us?”
“Yes, and more.”
“What do you mean, ‘more’?” There was an edge to his voice. At least she had his full attention, which gave her some satisfaction.
“I mean us, my stupid job at the foundation, and this!” She waved at the frozen street. All of it. The neighborhood, Brooklyn Heights, New York City. It hadn’t struck her until that very moment that she was sick of New York, sick of her daily life.
Tom pushed the paper away from him. It was a gesture he always made when he was upset, as if he was clearing his deck for a new problem.
She was afraid now. She was always afraid when she got Tom angry. That was one of the underlying problems in their relationship. She wasn’t honest enough with Tom, for in her heart of hearts she was afraid of losing him, of being without anyone at all.
“Well, what brought this on, this disgust about your life?”
“You know what.”
“For chrissake, Jennifer, I slept with that woman once, and I was a goddamn stupid fool to tell you.”
“You weren’t telling me, Tom, you were bragging. You were showing off, you were being a jerk, and just so you could appear as a stud in front of your stupid friends,” she answered back.
“Don’t go back over that bullshit,” he said softly, turning to his coffee.
“Bullshit yourself!” Jennifer looked away again, out the window at the cold day. She was surprised that she wasn’t crying. She had gotten tougher in the last few years, she realized.
At the Justice Department Christmas party, Tom had gotten drunk and boasted to the other males that he had slept with Helen Taubman, the television anchorwoman, that fall, just when Jennifer had begun dating him seriously.
Jennifer had become dizzy, trying to reach the ladies’ room in the crowded restaurant before she became sick. She had blamed it on the champagne, on the excitement and the warm restaurant, but of course all his friends knew she was lying. Tom’s admission had shocked them all.
“You want to talk about this, Jennifer?” Tom asked. He was focusing his full attention on her, but then she saw him glance at the kitchen clock.
“Are you in a hurry?” she asked, trying to pin him down. “Are you going into the office? What is it? Why the glances at the clock?”
“Jesus, remind me not to cross you again early in the morning.” He spun around and stood up.
“Tom! Listen to me!” He set his coffee cup on the counter and kept walking. She waited until he had reached the doorway before she called after him. “I think we should take a break from each other for a while.”
That got his attention. She saw the way his shoulder muscles tensed, and he halted in the doorway. She watched him make a slow and dramatic turn. He was stalling for time, giving himself a chance to think of a response. She knew all his gestures and habits as if they were her own.
“Are you sleeping with someone else?” he asked.
Jennifer recognized the tactic. He was putting her on the defensive. She stared back at him, refusing to rise to the bait. When he came slowly back into the kitchen, holding her eyes with his, she began to tense. Her fingers tightened around the warm coffee cup.
“Right? Is this what all this oblique talk is about?” He had reached the table, but he didn’t sit down. She knew he liked to hover over people.
“Our relationship isn’t going anywhere,” she told him.
“Don’t give me that shit! Who is it? One of those assholes from the foundation? Handingham, right?”
“David?” She looked up at Tom, startled by his guess. “You think I’d be interested in David?” Now she was offended.
“He’s your boss, isn’t he? He’s got the power around that place.”
“Oh, for God’s sake. You think I’d have an affair with David Handingham just because he’s the president of the board?”
“You wouldn’t be the first woman to fuck her way up the ladder.”
“Tom, that’s disgusting! I can’t believe you’d think that. Sometimes I don’t think you know me at all.”
“Sometimes I think you’re right.” He sat down across from her.
She realized he was upset, and that pleased her. She looked away again, back through the kitchen window. It was suddenly much brighter. The sun had reached the street and was shining off the frozen snow, and Jennifer stared hard at the gleaming surface until her eyes hurt.
“Okay, let’s talk about this later.” He glanced at the clock, then over at Jennifer. “I’ll call you later, okay?”
She wanted to say no, but that would be unfair to Tom, and unfair to herself. She had already invested over six months in their relationship.
“I’ll be here,” she told him.
Tom nodded, then sighed. “Okay,” he said, tapping the table and pulling himself up. “I’ll call before four. We’re having dinner, right?” When she nodded yes, he said quickly, “I’ll make the reservations.”