Crosstalk

by Connie Willis

  “But what about psychics?” Briddey asked, thinking of that email Kathleen had sent her about Lyzandra of Sedona. “They claim to be telepaths, don’t they?”

  “Claim” being the operative word. They’re either scam artists or they’re unconsciously cold reading.

  She wished he hadn’t mentioned the word “cold.” It reminded her how icy her feet were. “Cold reading?” she asked, tucking her feet up under her. “What’s that?”

  It’s skillful guessing combined with reading facial expressions and body language. And asking leading questions. “I’m getting a message from a relative…a female?…whose name begins with B…or M…or C,” all the time watching your reactions till either they get a hit or you shout, “It’s my sister Kathleen!” And marvel that they could read your mind like that.

  He regaled her with other tricks professional mind readers and mentalists used while she sipped her tea and then ate a bowl of cereal: secret codes and marked cards and audience shills who gathered information from subjects and communicated it to the mind reader onstage via hidden mikes and earpieces. Like you accused me of doing last night.

  “But they can’t all be scam artists,” Briddey said. “What about the ones who work with the police?”

  They’re fakes, too. But even if they aren’t, they’re not telepaths. They claim they can find murder victims, who obviously aren’t saying anything. Fortune-telling doesn’t qualify either. Or claiming to be able to predict what’s going to happen in the future.

  Like Aunt Oona with her premonitions and her claiming to know who’s on the phone before it rings, Briddey thought.

  Those fall under the definition of clairvoyance, which is as bogus as all the other paranormal stuff out there, except for telepathy—telekinesis, astral projection, past-life regression. Speaking of which, I found another reason you shouldn’t tell Verrick, he said. Your name.

  “My name? You mean Flannigan?”

  No, your first name. Did you ever hear of Bridey Murphy?

  “No. Who’s that?”

  I’ll tell you while you get dressed.

  “Dressed? Why?”

  Because I’m coming to get you, remember? And we’re going to the Marriott.

  “But I thought we weren’t going till five thirty.”

  We aren’t. But it’s five fifteen, and I’m about ten blocks from your apartment.

  “Oh,” she said, hastily setting down her cereal bowl and scrambling off the couch. She’d completely lost track of the time. She hurried into the bedroom, untying her robe as she went, and then stopped short.

  Oh, for— C.B. said. I won’t look, all right? Even though I can’t see anything. I told you, it’s not X-ray vision. You can’t see me, can you?

  “No.” But he’d known she was lying in bed, and he’d known she was in the stairwell at the hospital. And just now, he’d known she’d started to undress and stopped. Why was that?

  Because I can hear what you’re thinking.

  And why was that? All she could hear was what he said to her, but he seemed able to hear her every thought.

  If you don’t want me to know you’re undressing or taking a shower, just don’t think about it, he was saying.

  “Fine. I won’t,” she said, taking off her robe and pulling her nightgown off over her head, thinking determinedly of how glad she was going to be when they were no longer connected. She reached for her bra.

  Though I should probably tell you, C.B. said conversationally, I don’t need telepathy to imagine you taking off your clothes.

  She snatched up her clothes, stomped into the bathroom, and slammed the door, even though it wouldn’t do any good. Nor would telling him what a loathsome and disgusting individual he was.

  I tried to warn you it was a cesspool in there.

  “Go away,” she said, though that wouldn’t do any good either. “Now.”

  I need to tell you about Bridey Murphy first. She was this housewife back in the 1950s. Her name was Virginia Tighe.

  “I thought you said her name was Bridey Murphy,” Briddey said, trying to get her bra on without thinking about it, which was easier said than done.

  That’s what she said her name was. Under hypnosis. She told the therapist she lived in Ireland. In the 1800s.

  “The 1800s?” Briddey said, pulling on her sweater and reaching for her jeans.

  Yep, and she had all kinds of proof. Details Virginia Tighe was unlikely to have known about life in Ireland back then. She spoke in a thick brogue—

  Which doesn’t prove anything, Briddey thought. Look at Aunt Oona.

  And she knew all sorts of Irish tales and folk songs. She sang “Danny Boy” for the therapist and told him all about the house she lived in in Cork and the church she went to, even about her own funeral.

  Briddey’d managed to get her jeans and her shoes on while he talked. She tied her hair back with a scrunchie. “Her own funeral?”

  Yeah, the therapist believed Virginia had lived a previous life and was the reincarnation of this Bridey Murphy, C.B. said, and went silent.

  “Well?” Briddey said after a minute. “What happened? I assume she was a fraud.”

  No answer.

  “C.B.?” Briddey called.

  Still nothing.

  C.B.? Are you there?

  Yep, he said. Ready to go?

  “Yes,” she said, grabbing up her coat and her bag. “Where are you?”

  Here.

  She opened the door. He was leaning against the doorjamb, wearing a hoodie and a pair of baggy pants, his hair a tangled mess.

  Thanks, he said. You look nice, too. He held out a flat paper packet. Here.

  “What’s this?”

  “An extra-large bandage. To cover your IV bruise.”

  “I thought you said I should put an Ace bandage on it.”

  “That was before you told your sister that you’d cut your hand.”

  “But she won’t be at the Marriott or at Commspan—”

  He made a face. “Facebook, remember? Plus Instagram and Vine and Snapchat and iChat and youChat and weAllChat and FaceTime and Tumblr and Whisper. Even if your sister hasn’t already posted it, somebody else is bound to, and if you tell them it’s carpal tunnel…” He shrugged. “Fourth Rule of Lying: Keep your stories straight.”

  “Fine,” she said, and started to tear the package open.

  He shook his head. “We need to get going. You can do that in the car. Got your ticket for the parking garage?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  “Shh,” she whispered. “You’ll wake up my neighbors.”

  You’re the one who insisted on talking out loud, he said, following her down the stairs and outside.

  It was dark, and there was no one on the street, but Briddey still tried to shut the door of C.B.’s Honda quietly when she got in. C.B. turned the key in the ignition, and the radio came on, blaring a song.

  Briddey dived to shut it off, got the tuning knob by mistake, and was treated to loud static and a reporter shouting, “…rain this weekend,” and then “…Congress is in recess this week,” before she managed to switch it off.

  “Don’t worry, nobody heard that,” C.B. said, pulling away from the curb. “Everybody’s asleep. Except people who are lying to their boyfriends. Speaking of which, you might want to work on Rule Number Five: Don’t look guilty. If you’re going to make a career of lying, you’ve got to learn to do it with a straight face. Like Bridey Murphy, who completely fooled her therapist.”

  “She did?”

  “Yeah. He was so convinced she was telling the truth, he wrote a book about her past life, did magazine interviews, went on TV with her. He even played the tapes of her hypnosis sessions so people could hear Bridey’s voice. They were a sensation. But then reporters started digging, and it turned out there were no records of a Bridey Murphy being born in Cork at that time, no such church, and the words to ‘Danny Boy’ hadn’t been written till 1910. And when they checked
into Virginia Tighe’s background, they found an Irish aunt and an Irish neighbor who’d told her stories and taught her the songs—and presumably the brogue—when she was a little girl. She was declared a fraud, and the therapist’s reputation was ruined, too, just like the reputation of every other doctor or scientist who’s ever gotten involved with the paranormal. Even Joseph Rhine.”

  “Joseph Rhine? Who’s that?”

  “A respected scientist at Duke University—till he ran a series of telepathy experiments in the 1930s. He put subjects in a room and had them look at Zener cards—you know, the ones with stars or squares or wavy lines on them?—and ‘think’ the image on the card to a second subject in another room. Laboratory conditions and all very scientific, but Dr. Rhine didn’t fare any better than Bridey Murphy’s therapist. His research was discredited, he was branded a nutter, and since then, nobody respectable’s been willing to touch telepathy with a ten-foot pole.”

  “And you think Dr. Verrick won’t be willing to either, even if I can persuade him I’m telling the truth?”

  “I know he won’t. He’s got a cushy practice and a bunch of celebrity patients. He’s not going to be willing to risk that, even if it means he has to accuse you of being a fake.”

  Or mentally ill, she thought despairingly. Everything C.B. had just said was true. If she told them she was telepathic, no one would believe her. And she didn’t blame them. If Charla told her she was hearing voices, Briddey would assume she was either joking or delusional. Or seriously ill. So I can’t tell Dr. Verrick. And I can’t tell Trent because he’ll think I’m emotionally bonded to C.B. What am I supposed to do?

  “Stall,” C.B. said. “Forty-eight hours aren’t up till three this afternoon, and a lot can happen between now and then. In the meantime, I’ll look into the crosstalk thing and try to find some telepathic incidents between non-emotionally-bonded people that you can tell Trent about. Hitler was interested in the paranormal. If he was telepathic, we’re golden. Everybody hated him.”

  They were nearly to the Marriott. The sun had come up, but the streets were still largely deserted, and Briddey wondered if 6 A.M. was going to be too early after all for her to pick up the car.

  “No, there’ll be a bunch of people leaving to catch early flights. You’ll be fine,” C.B. said, and she wondered again why her mind seemed to be an open book to him but she couldn’t hear what he was thinking. When he stopped in mid-sentence, as he seemed to do a lot, she couldn’t even hear the tail end of what he was going to say. Why not? And had he just heard her thinking that?

  If he had, he gave no indication. He was busy pulling into the drive-thru of a Starbucks. “What do you want?” he asked.

  “Nothing. Trent’s coming for breakfast, remember?”

  “So you told me,” he said, and repeated, “What do you want?” And inside her head: I’m not talking about breakfast. If I were, I’d have taken you to this deli I know that has great lox and bagels. This is for protective coloration. See?

  He pointed across the street at a man heading into an office building carrying a Starbucks cup. If anybody notices you walking into the hotel, it’ll look like you’re arriving for a meeting and picked up coffee on the way. So, what’ll it be?

  “A tall latte,” Briddey said.

  C.B. ordered it and then said silently, I’m going to drop you around the corner from the front entrance so you won’t be seen with me, okay?

  No, Briddey thought to herself. It’s not okay at all. It’s like we’re sneaking around, having an affair.

  No, it’s not. I can think of a couple major differences. Would you like me to list them?

  She was saved from having to answer that by the barista’s saying, “Your tall latte.”

  C.B. took the cup, handed it across to her, pulled out into the street, and drove toward the hotel. “I looked up the layout of the lobby online, in case you weren’t paying attention when you parked your car. You go past the registration desk and turn left, and the elevators are right there. Let me know when you’ve gotten your car and are started back. And let me know if you connect with Trent or if you experience anything unusual.”

  “Why?” Briddey asked suspiciously.

  “Because it might provide a clue to what’s causing this. The more information we have to go on, the likelier we are to figure this out.”

  He turned right just short of the Marriott. “So I need you to tell me if you sense anything, an emotion or a sound or one of those flickers Dr. Verrick talked about. Anything, even if it seems like nothing.”

  “All right,” Briddey agreed. “But why do I have to tell you? I thought you could read my mind.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t have time to hang around listening to you all day. I’ve got things to do, phones to design, people to chauffeur,” he said, pulling over to the curb and stopping. Briddey set her latte down so she could grab her bag and reached to open the door.

  Hang on, C.B. said.

  She stopped, her hand on the door handle. C.B. was looking intently in the rearview mirror. “Did you see someone from Commspan?” she asked nervously.

  He took a minute to answer. “Nope, you’re good. Don’t forget this.” He handed her her latte. And if Trent doesn’t show and you change your mind about breakfast—or having an affair—call me.

  “Not a chance,” she said, slammed the car door, and walked away. She hurried up to the corner and then hesitated. Starbucks cup or no, she was still walking into and driving out of a hotel at six in the morning. If anyone from Commspan saw her—

  They won’t, C.B. said.

  How do you know that? Don’t tell me you can read their minds, too?

  I don’t have to to know nobody’ll notice you, he said. I work at Commspan, remember?

  What’s that supposed to mean?

  You’ll see when you turn the corner.

  She did. The Marriott’s entrance was lined with people standing waiting for a taxi with their luggage—and staring at their smartphones. Not a single person looked up as she maneuvered her way through them.

  Told you, C.B. said.

  She went into the lobby. It was full of people, too, all checking out and all just as fixated on their phones. She walked past the registration desk, over to the parking garage elevator, onto the elevator, and down to the level she’d left her car on without being noticed by a soul—including the parking attendant. He took her ticket and her money without once looking up from the videogame on his phone.

  She drove out of the garage and headed toward Linden, breathing a sigh of relief. It was only six fifteen. She could get home and still have forty-five minutes before Trent got there in which to concentrate on connecting.

  But she hadn’t taken the traffic into consideration. Two blocks after she’d turned onto Linden, she ran into bumper-to-bumper morning rush-hour traffic. Don’t panic, she told herself. You can concentrate on connecting with Trent while you drive.

  No such luck. She had to focus all her attention on the traffic because every other driver was talking on a phone or slowing down to text, looking up too late to realize the light had changed, and slamming to a halt at the last minute. C.B.’s right, Briddey thought. There is entirely too much communicating going on.

  But not between her and Trent. She didn’t hear anything during the long crawl home. He hadn’t even texted her, and he usually did the minute he woke up. She glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It’s nearly seven thirty, she thought. He has to be awa—oh, no, seven thirty! If he gets there before I do—

  Tell him you were out getting stuff for breakfast, C.B. said.

  Which was actually a good idea, though it meant getting home even later, and as she raced through the grocery store, snatching up eggs and juice, she remembered she’d left her computer on. If she’d left up one of those articles about telepathy, and Trent saw it…

  She sped home, praying his car wouldn’t be parked outside, even though it was already seven forty. No sign of his Porsche. Good. She ran up the st
airs with the groceries, thrust them into the refrigerator, called up a news feed on her computer, took off her coat, flung it in the bedroom, and went to make an omelet.

  Halfway through cracking the eggs, it occurred to her that he always texted her when he was going to be late. Unless he couldn’t. Because I never turned my phone back on.

  And sure enough, once she’d turned it on, there were two texts from Trent: “No connection yet. Don’t think being separated is working,” and “Cant make it for breakfast. Meeting with Hamilton.”

  “Thank goodness,” she murmured, but she hadn’t even finished voicing the thought before he texted her again, telling her to call him when she got to work and he’d come down and walk her to her office.

  “Not a good idea if we want to keep our EEDs secret,” she texted him back. “The less people see us together, the better. It might remind them we were going to have the EED, and that plus your bandage might make them put two and two together.”

  Her phone rang the second she was done sending it. It was Mary Clare. “I need to move your lunch with Maeve on Saturday.”

  Lunch with Maeve on Saturday. She’d forgotten all about it.

  “Our mother-daughter book club is meeting from eleven to one,” Mary Clare was saying. “I took your advice.”

  “My—?”

  “About reading the books Maeve’s reading. I thought, a book club’s the perfect way to find out what’s going on in Maeve’s head. We’ll discuss why we liked the books and how they relate to our own problems. We’re going to start with The Darkvoice Chronicles and then do The Secret Garden next week.”

  Oh, poor Maeve, Briddey thought as Mary Clare prattled on about who she’d invited to join.

  “Anyway, you can pick her up at one fifteen,” Mary Clare said, and hung up before Briddey could tell her she might be busy. Almost instantly she got Trent’s responding text. “You’re right. We’d better keep apart.”