by Amber Foxx
Jen, a few steps ahead, stiffened her shoulders into a protective armor at the back of her neck. Hubert slipped his arm around her waist. She pulled away.
Jeezus. They’d been so happy together the last time Jamie had seen them, and they’d only been married a little longer than he had been on tour. Jen’s brittle rebuff tore at him as if he’d been the one rejected. His ex-fiancée, Lisa, had acted that way when he had tried to touch her after she’d given up on him. After she’d stopped loving him.
Things couldn’t be that bad for Jen and Hubert, though. It had taken years of Jamie’s turmoil, neuroses, and financial fuck-ups to burn through Lisa’s patience with him, and neither Jen nor Hubert was that messed up. As far as he knew.
Jamie could feel the girls’ distress through their hands, and held them tighter. They’d seen Jen refuse Hubert’s touch. Seen Jen go on alert at the mere mention of Mae. The twins drew closer to him. He wished he could to take them home to Mae. Bring them to a happy, stable family. The one he didn’t have yet.
They arrived at the restaurant, an old stone house with two chimneys, and proceeded to the private dining rooms upstairs. The large one hosted the main dinner party, while the smaller one held a separate party for the guests’ children. While Jen went to find the wedding planner, Jamie waited with Hubert near a small raised platform in an alcove that Jamie guessed served as a stage. A plump woman wearing a name tag hustled Brook and Stream toward the children’s party. Jen broke off talking with a coiffed and painted Greek woman and caught up with the twins in the doorway. “Please take off your sweaters. They cover up your pretty dresses.”
Stream tugged her sweater tighter. Brook buttoned hers.
Jen sighed, bent down, and began undoing Brook’s buttons. “There are going to be pictures. You need to look your best.”
Brook snatched Jen’s hand away and stepped back. “Stop picking on us. You got us stupid pink dresses for today and stupid white dresses for tomorrow, and we’re wearing them, all right? Even if they’re stupid and we hate them.”
Jen stood open mouthed with clenched fists. Stream buttoned her sweater, too, and put her arm through Brook’s. They raised their chins and stuck their chests out, daring Jen to fight back. She didn’t. Red-faced, she dodged past the crowded tables and toward the restrooms. The babysitter patted the girls’ backs, shaking her head, and urged them to join the other children.
Hubert stared at the place where his wife and his daughters had been, then exhaled sharply and squeezed his eyes shut.
“Mate.” Jamie put an arm around his shoulders. “You all right?”
Almost imperceptibly, Hubert’s head moved. No. The pain coming off him swept through Jamie like a flash flood.
Suddenly, the mannequin-like wedding planner was in front of them, grabbing Jamie’s hand in both of hers and pumping it, pulling him away from Hubert. “I’m Tula. I’m running the show. Are you ready? Olympia’s been waiting for you.”
“Go on,” Hubert said. “It’s what you’re here for. Not our shit.”
“I’m here as your friend. Fuck Olympia, I don’t know her.”
“Excuse me?” Tula stepped back. “What did you just say?”
“Nothing. Sorry, just a figure of speech.”
“Where’s your sound system? Your instruments?”
With a jolt, Jamie realized he’d left his flutes in the van. He’d brought them as far as the rear gate, then gotten out because Gasser was taking a shit. Jeezus. Was he always this forgetful, or was it worse since he’d been sick? He tried to sound confident, as if the mistake was intentional. “Just doing a cappella ballads. My voice is fine for a room like this.”
“Don’t you need to change your clothes?”
Jamie was wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt he’d bought at a bargain store in Damariscotta. It was forest green, a thick, silky knit, the first body-hugging clothing he’d worn outside of yoga class since the previous winter’s weight gain had driven him to hide in Aloha shirts. His gut wasn’t quite gone, but the soft fabric clung to his shoulders and arms, drawing attention to his muscles and away from his belly. After studying himself far too long in the dressing room mirror, he’d bought three such shirts in different colors. Apparently Tula didn’t think he looked good, though.
“This is as dressed up as I can get,” he told her.
She sighed. “All right. I trust Jen knew what she was doing when she brought you here.”
Jeezus, the woman was rude. “I hope Olympia knew what she was doing when she hired you as a wedding planner.”
Jamie strode to the platform in the alcove, shaking with irrational anger. Behind him, Tula blew out a noise like wind-tunnel sound effects, and he sensed her eyes hot on his back. Why had he snapped at her? He’d been holding himself together so well.
No, he hadn’t. He’d panicked in the dead-end street. Locked his keys and his flutes in the van. And he wasn’t keeping his boundaries, wasn’t controlling the leaks that let his healing energy out and other people’s energy in. His outburst at Tula felt like a piece of the tension between the twins and Jen rather than an emotion that was entirely his own. If he didn’t get a grip, he would be seeing souls again.
Looking out over the dinner party, at the dressed-up chatting people, Jamie felt out of place. Jen hadn’t known what she was doing. This was a terrible idea. He hadn’t warmed up, he’d pissed off the wedding planner, Jen was in the bathroom probably crying her eyes out, and he had no clue who Olympia was to direct a song to her. The crowded feeling in his chest made his heart race and strangled his breath. His only remedy for panic was breathing or holding Gasser, and his breath itself had gone wrong. Still, he tried a few slow breaths, then began the French version of one of his love songs for Mae.
His projection was weak. He needed the sound system. And it was a song he’d written for Mae when he thought he had no chance of winning her. This was Maine. People spoke French here. They would think it was a bad omen for a wedding, a song about unrequited love.
A woman at the center table was frowning at him and clenching her silverware. Olympia? She was darker than Jen, but had the same round eyes and the same petite but athletic build.
Jamie couldn’t remember singing badly in public before in his life. He tried to get more space inside himself, to feel his diaphragm move the way it should, but he only felt more crowded inside. Light-headed, legs trembling, he stumbled from the platform and bolted from the room. His vision was narrowing, black around the edges, and his chest tightened like a boa constrictor had hold of him. Sweat soaked his shirt and the roots of his hair. He made it down the stairs, holding the railing, but before he could get to the door and fresh air, he collapsed on the bottom step and blacked out.
When he came to, Jen and Hubert were sitting on either side of him. Jen’s makeup was smeared, her sparkling eyeliner creating streaks of glitter on her cheeks.
Sparkles. Images of needles probing him at the hospital in Damariscotta flashed across Jamie’s mind. Blood tests. Lymph node biopsies. The quiet, solemn Dr. Farrow—the only black man Jamie had seen in Maine, a synchronicity that made him trust him, however illogically—had explained his concerns, similar to Dr. Don’s, and the reasons for all the tests. The results will come to me, but I’ll share them with your doctor in New Mexico. Jamie had wanted to say it was Dr. Don, but gave the name of his dreary GP instead. Soon, he would know if Sierra had been right about a serious illness. The possibility nearly triggered a new panic.
Though his hands were unsteady, Jamie wet a finger and rubbed at Jen’s streaked makeup. “You’ve been crying.” Another failure of boundaries. You didn’t practically lick people you weren’t intimately close to. “Sorry. Putting my spit on your face. Dunno what I was thinking. Mum always cleaned us up like that. And my Warlpiri grandmother. Jeezus. When I was a kid, I was whining ’cause I had something in my eye, and she said ‘let me see,’ and then she got real close to look and she licked my eyeball.” Jen gave a quavering, cringing giggle. Jamie wet
his finger again and cleaned her face some more. “What’s the matter?”
She took his hand down. “Never mind me. Are you okay?”
Jamie’s shoulders wriggled. “Panic attack.”
Hubert said, “From performing? That’s not like you. We’ve seen your shows twice and you sure didn’t have stage fright then.”
If Jamie mentioned the disturbing pressure in his chest, they would know he was sick, and he didn’t want to tell anyone until he got the test results. No reason to scare them when it might be only cat scratch fever. He’d already spent too much of his life making people worry about him. Depression. Suicide attempts. Disasters. Traumas. Everything on Gorman’s fucking stress list. “Wedding, y’know? They get to me.”
Jen looked puzzled. “It’s a rehearsal dinner.”
Jamie kept improvising. “I never got that far. My fiancée dumped me.” He dug his fingers into his hair and shook it. Still damp at the roots, but he was cooling off. “No worries. Except I ruined your gift for Olympia. Sorry. Want me to give it another go?”
She bit her lip and her voice cracked. “No. She doesn’t want you to come back.”
“Fuck. Shoot me. This was the only gift you got her, wasn’t it? And I—agh, Jeezus. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Hubert put a hand on his arm. “It’s all right.” He stood. “Music would have been nice, but Olympia’s going to get more gifts than she needs, and she already has more stuff than most people.”
Jen smacked her hands on her thighs. “Will you quit doing that? That’s like the tenth time you’ve cut her down for being rich.”
“I wasn’t—oh, forget it. You should get back to the party. I’ll stay with Jamie, make sure he’s okay.”
Jen’s eyes filled. “But it’s my fault. For even asking him to be here.”
Jamie recognized the symptoms. Self-blame. Emotions so sore and close to the surface, anything could make you cry. She was bordering on a breakdown.
He drew her to her feet and hugged her. The healing force flowed through him, beyond his control. He sensed an earthquake inside her, dark chunks of something heavy tumbling through her inner space. Then stillness. She stopped crying and breathed steadily.
“That was the best hug I’ve ever had.” She gazed up into his eyes. Her makeup was more smudged than ever. “Thank you.”
Jamie fought the urge to clean her again. “Take care of yourself.”
“I will.”
“You’re stressed out.”
“I know. I have to ...” She pulled herself up and put on a brave smile. “I’ll do what I need to.”
“Go wash your face.”
After giving him a tiptoe kiss on the cheek, she scurried up the stairs in her clattering heels. Hubert watched her, then turned to Jamie. “You okay to drive?”
“Yeah. Gasser’s a therapy animal. I don’t panic when I have him.”
“I’ll walk with you. Make sure you get to your van in one piece.”
They walked in silence for a while. The cool weather made Jamie shiver in his sweat-damp shirt.
“You hit the nail on the head,” Hubert said finally. “Jen’s stressed out. She has been since we got home from our honeymoon.”
“It’s a big change.” Marriage had been on Gorman’s stress quiz, one of the few stressors Jamie hadn’t checked. “Even a good change is hard.”
“It’s more than that. I didn’t understand how fragile she is. Her ego is like an eggshell. She can’t hold up.”
“But you’re getting counseling, right?”
“Mae tell you that?”
“Nah. Jen did. Nothing embarrassing about it, talking to me. I mean, I’ve been locked up, y’know?”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Yeah, three times. Not that I’m saying Jen’s headed there. Maybe she needs therapy on her own, though, not just the family thing.”
“I kinda think the girls do. I didn’t realize how hard they took me and Mae splitting up until I married Jen. Maybe we should’ve lived together first, eased into it, but I wanted Brook and Stream to feel secure, not like we were test-driving being a family.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, walking more slowly. There was a note of doom in his voice. “Guess we should have. But I wanted to give them a whole family again.”
Jamie hadn’t been able to close his visions off after opening up to Jen. Hubert’s soul was showing, and it had a shredded quality at the heart chakra, like the torn gray clouds drifting over Portland.
“Fuck,” Jamie blurted. “You think you won’t last?” They turned onto the dead-end cobblestone street. “That what you’re saying?”
Hubert stopped, eyes narrowed. He didn’t seem to be breathing. Then he let out his words in a near whisper, looking away. “Not out loud. Not yet.”
They reached the van. Jamie crouched and reached into the magnetic key holder. The key was gone.
“Bloody hell.” Suddenly weak, he leaned on the bumper to pull himself up. He couldn’t see through the smoked rear windows to check that the keys had really fallen in the cargo space, though they must have. He’d locked the front, then opened the back, which locked itself on closing if the front was locked. Despite knowing this, he tested the rear gate anyway and then paced to the front.
His key ring was on the passenger seat, tucked under one of Gasser’s front paws. As always when Jamie’s inner vision was open, the cat had a mild golden aura. He appeared to be sleeping. “Will you look at that? He’s got my keys.” How was that possible?
Hubert approached the window. “You mean that’s not where you left ’em?”
“Couldn’t have. I unlocked the back.”
“Maybe they fell under the van and someone found them and put them inside with your cat?”
That would mean they’d unlocked the van. Alarmed, Jamie tried the driver’s side door. It was still locked. “Weird. He didn’t pick them up and carry them. Don’t think so anyway.” Gasser had lighter-weight toys. Would he really take interest in a key ring?
“He must have. No other way they could have gotten there with the door still locked.”
Though he knew it was pointless, Jamie walked around and tried the passenger door. “Wonder how long ago I lost the spare. Never used it. Can’t imagine someone taking it to move the keys to the front seat and then locking up again.”
Hubert took a smartphone from his pocket. “Need to call a locksmith? I can look one up.”
Jamie groaned and tried the door again. He didn’t want to waste the time and money. Gasser raised his head, and Jamie heard the distinct clickety-thud of the doors unlocking. A spell of uncontrollable laughter overtook him. He opened the door, hugged Gasser, and checked the glove box. His wallet was still in it.
Clutching his cat, Jamie dropped into the passenger seat, unable to stop laughing. He stroked the pink padded sole of Gasser’s paw and rubbed his big, clawless, white-furred toes. Gasser must have stepped on the key. Carried them to the front and then pressed the button.
A glance into the rear compartment gave Jamie a reassuring view of the edge of his didg and the stand of his solo sound system poking out from under one of the blankets. With the smoked windows, he was getting sloppy about covering things up as well as he should. His flutes lay on top of the far end of the blanket that draped the drums.
“That was bizarre,” Hubert said. “Is he that smart?”
Jamie’s laughter finally subsided. “Nah. I could picture one of my parrots figuring it out, but not Gasser.” He petted Gasser’s head, smoothing his ears back so he looked bald. “Good heart, but he’s not the brightest light on the porch. Dumb luck. Or ...” Jamie didn’t want this to be happening again. Or spirits.
Hubert put his phone away. “Dumb luck or a smarter cat than you realize.”
Spirits hadn’t messed with Jamie’s things for months. In the spring, they had plagued him, turning on lights or music, but their intrusions had been a message. When he’d gotten it, they’d left him alone. The only spirit trying t
o tell him something now was William, and the ghost cat telling the live cat to fetch the keys didn’t make sense. William’s message was more personal and frightening.
Gasser, remarkably, deserved some credit.
Jamie moved the purring cat off his lap, got up, and gave Hubert a hug, with another leak of healing energy. The exchange was sad, but Jamie felt something shift in Hubert, like a crack in a rock drawing partly back into wholeness.
“Drive safely,” Hubert said. The shredded place in his heart chakra pulsed with light. “And take good care of Mae. You’re a lucky man.”
Before driving, Jamie held Gasser and meditated long enough to close his ajna chakra, the third eye. Its purple swirling light behind his eyes shrank to a pinpoint. When he looked down, the cat’s golden aura no longer showed.
Jamie transferred him to the passenger seat, turned the GPS on, pressed the button for home with a flood of relief, and began backing up the one-way street again. This time, he looked first, and no one honked.
As he often did while traveling, he talked to his cat. “Thanks for saving me, mate. Even if I said you’re not bright enough to do it. I’ll give you a massage tonight. Nice long Reiki session, too. Feels good to be heading home.”
Not quite home. Mae’s house. Gasser would like that better, though. He was jealous of Mae, but not as jealous as he was of the parrots. Jen was jealous, too. Of Mae’s relationship with the children and perhaps Mae’s past with Hubert, as well.
As Jamie approached an intersection, the image of Hubert’s half-healed, half-broken heart filled his mind, along with the echo of Hubert’s words. You’re a lucky man.
The traffic light turned red and Jamie almost drove through it. “Bloody hell.” He slammed on the brakes. “He still loves her.”
Chapter Eighteen
At the conclusion of the medical intuition session, Rex sat up with a deep crease of worry between his brows. He patted his hair, tugged at the hem of his shirt, and asked, “Well?”