“Black is the color of grounding. You’re a skeptic, you don’t strike me as someone who needs more grounding.”
“And you don’t strike me as someone who’d think I’m gullible enough to care. Besides, you said they’re only glass.”
“Good, you’re paying attention. But if they were actual stones, what would you be looking for?”
“You’re the ‘psychic’. You tell me.”
“Prosperity? Money drawing? No, more than that. Money comes and goes, but a good customer, that’s a lot more valuable than a one-time Charlie. Citrine, the merchant’s stone, that’s what you want.” She held up a bracelet with beads the color of urine.
“And again, I’m compelled to point out that it’s not even citrine, it’s glass.”
“True. But it can’t hurt to keep your eye out for the real deal.”
* * *
Carolyn didn’t call me right away, but given that she’d gone through so much effort to track me down at CUTTERZ, I had no doubt I’d hear from her just as soon as she was ready. And in the meantime, I could stay home, save the money I’d normally spend at the bar, and bone up on the various psychic “talents” so I didn’t seem completely ignorant.
The Internet being what it was, legitimate sources were few and far between, and before I knew it I got looped into taking a “How Psychic are You?” personality quiz. And once I was done, it could tell me which Backstreet Boy would be my best romantic match.
In my defense, it hadn’t looked like a random Internet meme. The site was plain and utilitarian, there weren’t any ads flashing in the sidebar, and whoever had written the thing took great care to make it seem legit. But then there were the questions.
Check the statements that best describe you:
_ When part of a song sticks in my head, I hear the song played the same day
_ I often mention songs that other people are thinking about
_ I’ve found myself singing along with an old song I’ve never heard before
_ I can guess what a friend is listening to while we’re texting
_ I find different meanings in song lyrics when other people are present
Obviously it was excruciatingly scientific. I didn’t agonize over any of my choices, but I did pick the obvious ones to see what brand of mental telepathy it was trying to make people think they possessed. There were some real doozies. I think Pilar would’ve gotten a kick out of the statement, “I sense when someone is attracted to me.” Too bad I couldn’t click that one extra-hard.
My end result should have been “Congratulations, you have common sense!” But no, according to the fourteen-year-old who put together the quiz….
You are an EMPATH
People were once said to have empathy when they put themselves in others’ shoes and tried to picture how they felt. Now it’s been proven that true psychic empaths can actually register the emotions of others. Relationships come easy for you as an empath, and you’re seldom lonely. Empaths excel in psychological fields, though you must take care to shield yourself from negative emotions. You may prefer to work with animals instead. You would also make an excellent salesperson.
Ridiculous quiz aside, I’d managed to bone up on enough current Psych research to seem passingly knowledgeable. The more I read, the more I wondered. While I didn’t know Carolyn all that well, she didn’t strike me as the sort of gullible rube who’d buy into all the hype. And yet she was working with the PsyCops—a program that had surprisingly little documentation online, unless you count angry, misspelled rants in the comment sections of news stories.
She called before the week was up and offered to treat me to dinner. “I’ve been feeling bad about not paying for my initial haircolor,” she said. “And since Red’s not around, and your old salon wasn’t really involved….” It would’ve been fun see her try paying Luscious anyway, if only to elicit another volley of tears.
I picked a Mexican joint with margaritas to die for and met her there on a hoppin’ Friday night. She showed up in jeans and a clingy black top. And despite the perma bitchface—or now with the blonde, because of it—she turned heads.
Once we’d made ourselves cozy with the chips and salsa, Carolyn said, “Red bought a plane ticket to San Francisco but his last residential address is his old apartment in Chicago.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Whatever happened is none of my business, I know that. But I care about him. And you.”
“It was a sordid love triangle with tears all around—me, the boss, and the boss’ pet. We’re lucky it didn’t end with a murder-suicide.” Her face clouded, and I added, “Uh, sorry. I don’t know many people who actually deal with things like that other than getting sucked into melodramatic reenactments on TV.”
She nodded and stabbed a few holes in her frozen margarita. “I’m concerned you figured out as much about my job as you did based on two fairly vague conversations.”
“You high-tailed it out of there while your hair was a lovely shade of tangerine and I put two and two together. Or, technically, Red did. He’s so observant.” Observant enough to spot Carolyn off in the distance on the breaking news, but too oblivious to notice Ralph fucking anything that moved. I tapped my salty rim against hers and said, “Here’s to Red. Best of luck in San Francisco. May we never speak of him again.”
We turned back to our drinks and sucked on the straws while the icy whip in the glasses got smaller and smaller. I suspected Carolyn was no stranger to awkward pauses. She gazed into her drink, licked her fingertip and captured some of the salt from the rim and touched it to her tongue. And when she was good and ready, she said, “Please don’t tell anyone I’m a PsyCop.”
Who would I tell? As soon as the thought occurred to me, I realized my mother would be profoundly impressed, and the tidbit would definitely wow her friends at Pilates. The Juniors would’ve emitted some high-pitched squeals. Hell, even my new smoking buddy would probably have a few choice words.
“I’m not in the habit of spreading other people’s secrets,” I said.
“That’s a relief. People act like Psychs are all out to get them. There aren’t many I can really talk to.”
And there weren’t many customers who could be bothered to follow me to a different salon. Then again, I didn’t dip from the communal salsa with customers, so I supposed I should recognize the relationship for what it was: a budding friendship.
“People seriously find ‘Psychs’ threatening?”
“All the time. All. The. Time.”
“Huh. Good thing you’re there to keep it all in check.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Well, no matter what kind of crazy predictions your psychic partner pulls out of his butt, you’re there to process it through the filter of rationality.”
She finished off her drink, motioned to the waitress for another round, then leaned in close and said, “Crash, my partner’s not the Psych. I am.”
Chapter 17
I’d always thought I understood human nature, but maybe I’d been overestimating my abilities. First I find out Red was in a committed relationship with Ralph. Then Carolyn turns out to be a card-carrying Psych. It was starting to look like I was nowhere near as perceptive as I’d presumed.
Working at a salon gave me lots of opportunities for people-watching. Saturday had better foot traffic than the weekdays, and all of us stylists concurred that Gail shouldn’t be the only one offering the walk-in deal. If we had gaps in our bookings, it made more sense for one of us to take the customer than to have them sit around waiting for Gail.
She didn’t like it. I knew this not because I’m an empath, of course, but because her facial expression, body language and tone of voice couldn’t possibly point to anything else. But she also had four stylists who were seriously annoyed with her, and if enough of us decided not to renew our contracts, it would take a hell of a lot of $20 walk-ins to replace the income we provided.
It was a busy enough day. I scoped out the cu
stomers and I watched the stylists interact with them, and I played a little game where I pretended, briefly, that each of them had a psychic talent. Could a telepathic stylist mind-read their way into a more solid rapport, a better haircut, a bigger tip? Or was it all simply a matter of paying attention? All I had to do was notice when someone looked particularly pleased with their cut to make sure they took my business card and promised to ask for me next time. All but two were totally down for it. Even at a higher rate.
Saturday was a booming day for Lydia’s business, too. Flush enough that she sent me out to get her a carton of smokes of her very own while she finished up her last few clients. Once we’d enjoyed that delicious after-work cigarette in the back stairwell, we adjourned to the closet-sized office to dissect my current situation.
“So I’m playing this game,” I said. “I keep my eye on Gail, on all the stylists, and I pretend I know what everybody’s thinking.”
“What about that owner lady—what’s the script you imagine running in her head?”
“I catch her looking at me and I realize, ha, I’m a threat. I’m younger, I’ve got better training, and people like me. She’s trying too hard. And it shows.”
Lydia pulled out her fortune telling deck. She handled it the way I handled my shears, like they were extensions of herself. She shuffled through, cut it in the middle and glanced at the card. She turned it toward me: The High Priestess. “Inner knowing. I love it when this pops up in a reading for someone as cynical as you.”
“It doesn’t take magic powers—I mean, psychic talent—to read people. It’s all a matter of paying attention.”
She dragged her thumb across the edges of the worn cards and cut again. Ace of Pentacles. “Usually this one is some kind of windfall, an opportunity, a sum of money that comes out of nowhere. But in your case…see that arbor in the background? Looks a heck of a lot like those bracelets I showed you. I think you can incorporate gemstones into your business strategy.”
“You know what I think? That you just want to unload that bag of ugly bracelets.”
“Nah, I got rid of those already. A client mentioned his kid was having a birthday party, teenage girls. They’re crazy for those things. I even made a few bucks.” She gave the cards a fond shuffle then tucked them back into her pocket. “Psychic talent aside, gemstones have a lot going for them. Crystals oscillate at their own frequencies. So do the cells in your body. Bring them both together and something’s gotta shift. They’re cheap, too. Really good markup value. Here’s what I’d do in your situation. Offer a base haircut that’s competitive with that cheapo. But for only five dollars more, you’ll do a gemstone profile, tell your customers which stones resonate with them. And then upsell again: another ten will buy them a gemstone totem to carry around and enhance their aura.”
As if I could say the word “aura” with a straight face. The specifics of Lydia’s plan were preposterous, but the thought of showing up Gail left me giddy with anticipation and delight. Bar time came and went while I was at home on my couch with my laptop, browser tabs filled with a dozen gemstone sites, from folklore to scientific research to wholesalers to crafts. I’d even taken apart one of my old necklaces to try my hand at knotting one of those beaded bracelets, a macrame type thing. It took maybe half an hour. But once I knew how to do it, I’d get faster. And my brain was already working on how much cooler they’d look with more interesting stones woven in.
I managed to rein myself in from hitting that buy button, but only because I wouldn’t be home to accept a package before one of the neighbor kids stole it and threw it in the courtyard birdbath. Besides, pictures can be deceiving. If I planned on augmenting my services with trinkets and doodads, I’d need to get a look at them in person.
Naturally, Maxine was delighted when I suggested we scope out a bead store before lunch.
“Isn’t this a-dor-a-ble?” she crooned over a necklace kit. Even in the photo on the hangtag, it looked like something you’d see on a middle schooler. The focal point was a chunky, stubby stone heart, pale pink. Rose quartz. And while my initial impulse was to tell my mother exactly how cheeseball I thought it was, I realized that by impugning her middle-aged suburban taste, I’d be passing up a golden opportunity at market research.
“What appeals to you about it?”
“I don’t know. It’s cute.”
“You never wear pink,” I pointed out.
“Well, no. I’m an Autumn.” She dropped it in her basket anyway. “It’s not like picking out a diamond or anything—it’s just a cheap, fun treat. I like it, so why not?”
Why not, indeed? An impulse buy could definitely give my business a boost. I didn’t want to end up selling macrame jewelry, though. Over breakfast I’d unraveled my initial bracelet attempt to see if I could shave off some time from their making, but frankly, the five-year-olds in the Hong Kong sweatshop who’d put together Lydia’s samples did a better job than me.
Lack of craftiness aside, there was definitely something about the gemstones that got my wheels turning. Not the pseudo-science about their “vibrational fields,” but the perceived value.
When people think gems, they picture an engagement diamond and two months’ salary (which is just another clever marketing ploy). But the bead store sold bags of gemstone chips for a mere couple of bucks. I even recognized several of their names from my research. Quartz, turquoise, hematite and garnet. I held up a tiny plastic bag of tourmaline and watched the light play through the colors. They weren’t unlike a good semi-permanent glaze, bold colors that didn’t wash down the drain like the pastel toners that kept blondes from looking brassy. On the surface, it might not seem like hair and gemstones had anything to do with each other. And yet, if I found that connection, I could exploit a unique angle that none of the other stylists had even considered.
If Maxine was connected to rose quartz, I found I was curious about the citrine, despite the fact that I really wasn’t a big fan of yellow. No doubt the power of suggestion at work. Lydia had managed to sell me on them, even though I knew they were only so much bunk.
The chips were cheapest. I bought ten varieties of stone chips and a few dozen tiny glass bottles with cork tops. Total expenditure on each potential impulse buy, maybe a couple of bucks apiece, and a lot easier than braiding bracelets for my psychic friends. Unfortunately, they were fussier to put together than I anticipated. Without a tiny funnel, those damn bottles were surprisingly difficult to fill—so yet again I found myself working into the wee hours without so much as a nightcap.
But come showtime, I was ready. Even if I was still picking chips of agate from between my toes.
I scavenged the spice rack from my kitchen—which I never used anyway, since I live on takeout—and set it up at my styling station. My cunning plan was to play it cool, let the little bottles of rocks sell themselves. Unfortunately, maybe I played it a little too cool. Only a couple of customers asked about them, and those who did weren’t keen on taking one home.
Another night of studying stretched out in front of me. If my customers were going to be enticed to “treat themselves,” I’d need to be able to tell them what the darn things were for. Or at least what the Internet claimed they were for, since no doubt they’d go home and debunk me if they thought I was shilling bullshit. Turns out I’d created some pretty interesting metaphysical vibrational combos based purely on my aesthetic decision to add one color to another.
My printer ran out of ink in the middle of the first printout and it was too late to go hunting for a refill, so I ended up labeling everything by hand. I suspect it didn’t take much longer, and it gave me a good reason to tie a business card on each bottle. Plus it gave my rock jars a certain artsy-craftsy appeal.
Unfortunately, customers were sparse the next day. And they seemed more intimidated by my rocks than intrigued.
“Don’t give up yet,” Lydia told me. “You’re the salesman. Sell them.”
And so I kept my eyes peeled for the methods other bu
sinesses used to bundle their services, from the car wash that charged double for an extra spray of wax, to the meal deals at restaurants that pimped fries and drinks no one needed in their stomach or on their waistline.
Between clients, I turned a dye box inside out and created a “Specials” table tent of my own. The basic was still $35, but for $50 I’d add in a Therapeutic Touch session—basically, a luxuriously lengthy scalp massage. And for $75, they could have the Full Crash Experience and extend their energetic bliss with my custom mineral blends.
Was it ethical to take advantage of people’s gullibility by peddling vagaries and nonsense about “energy”? I dunno. I was careful not to make any actual claims. And I made sure my scalp massages kicked some serious ass.
And when my customers talked, I listened. They wanted essential oil? I dabbed it on their temples. They wanted herbs? I packed them in drawstring bags and wrote affirmations on the muslin in fabric markers. Pretty soon the old ladies at the craft store knew me by name. Each new offering required an excruciating amount of research and a hefty outlay of cash, but I couldn’t argue with the results. My metaphysical accessories not only paid for themselves, but they allowed me to nudge my basic price closer to what it used to be in a fancy salon—a salon with a parking lot, a receptionist, and a distinct lack of roaches.
Gail was green with envy. She lowered her walk-ins to $15 and turned up the volume on her annoying CDs in an attempt to harsh my customers’ vibes, but my clientele wasn’t bothered by the pretentiously underground production values. They were the disaffected ex-art-school-punks who listened to that shit themselves. They were hipsters and millennials and even the occasional gangbanger. And the louder the music got, the more my secrets stayed with me. I sank my fingers deep into the clients’ hair, leaned over their shoulders, and murmured whatever new agey reassurances occurred to me. No one else could hear. It was just my customer, and me.
Skin After Skin - PsyCop 8 Page 13