by Paisley Ray
Gert scoffed. “People paying hard earned money for someone to tell them a fortune. I could save them their shekels and dole out free wisdom. Get off your keister and make life happen.”
Travis choked his stick and released. He ricocheted the ball across the table and into a bumper. It rolled back and tapped a solid into a side pocket. Gert and I cheered.
The temperature inside the bungalow began to drop. Sliding my flip-flops off, I hugged my knees. “I’m going to get Mom away from Betts. But I’m not sure how to lift the fog out of her head.”
“Things would have to be posed to her in a non-confrontational manner. On her turf,” Gert said.
Tapping her fingers under her chin, she smiled at Travis.
He stepped back. “Me? I just met your mom.”
I sipped my beer. “You have a gift of subtlety.”
Nancy Sinatra sang, “You’ve been messin where you shouldn’t have been messin.’” Aunt Gert never missed an opportunity to mess with someone. She told Travis, “Maeve would never suspect an outsider.”
“Oh no. Forget it. I don’t do charitable confrontations. This is a bad idea.”
Dad walked in through the front door holding a bucket of fried chicken, and Trudy trailed him carrying the sides. “What’s a bad idea?”
IT WAS THE MAGICAL time of the evening when the sun swept low, a darkening drop cloth closing on a final burst of showy brights. I expected psychic expo attendees to drive rusters, hippie vans, and campers. Travis parked his Volvo station wagon between a Mercedes Benz 560 and a showy Chevy Camaro. This wasn’t as hillbilly a scene as I’d thought it would be. My game needed to be on. I was so over Betts’s intrusion into my family. She was slippery, and being in the same room with her sent my alert bells and whistles off. I wanted to know how she really made a living. I doubted it was legal. Once I knew what I was dealing with, I hoped I could talk some sense into Mom.
Travis wore Adidas sweats and a t-shirt. Wanting to blend with the crowd in case undercover work transpired, I’d tied a mademoiselle scarf around my head. And although I normally didn’t bother with much more than mascara and lip gloss, I’d spent considerable time applying makeup. I batted my Cleopatra eyes at Travis. “Too much?”
“Where’s your crystal ball?”
“I knew I forgot something.”
He leaned against his car, while I fumbled in my jacket pocket for a cigarette. Dad’s vices consisted of Iron City beer and his Trudy habit. Other than those, he was squeaky clean. My moments away from him were few, and when the opportunity presented itself, I indulged in a slim Benson & Hedges.
“We were lucky to find a parking space. I thought this would be some rinky-dink, small-time carnival,” Travis said.
Exhaling downwind, I said, “They’ve advertised it in the paper, and on billboards all over town.”
Travis started to walk. “Trudy seemed interested in all the natural healing stuff. Do you think she’ll show up tonight?”
“And potentially bump into my mom? Compare notes about Dad? Not a chance.”
“Did you tell your mom we were coming?”
“No. I’ve barely had two minutes alone with her since she’s been back.”
“Your dad was cool about us coming.”
“Only because I guilted him.”
“Trudy helped. Saying she thought it would be harmless to take a look around. Her approval convinced him.”
“She only said that to suck up to me.”
“Why?”
I made a show of an eye roll. “She’s wants to be my ‘friend.’”
Sparse islands of trees and shrubbery dotted the parking lot. Travis and I dallied in one of the asphalt oases while I finished my ciggie. “Are you ready for this?” he asked.
Stubbing out my butt, I motioned forward. “I guess.”
The entrance fee for two was twelve dollars. I handed a guy inside a glass booth a twenty, gratis of Dad. At a second set of doors, a ticket collector with hawk feathers embellished on top of her head, rested against a carved cane. Travis held out our tickets. The towering headpiece distracted me, and I didn’t immediately recognize the beehive of twisted braids under the feathery cap.
“Mrs. Curtis?”
“I knew our paths would cross. Ophiuchus is still rising. I hope you haven’t run into any trouble?” I wondered if she knew Betts.
Her fingers began to tremble. The waxen skin bypassed Travis’s outstretched hand, and moved toward the eye of Horus charm I wore around my neck. She rubbed her thumb over the engraving and chanted, “Ocha kiniba nita ochun—cheke checke cheke.”
Travis slid his arm in mine and tugged.
Mrs. Curtis motioned for me to wait. Digging beneath the folds of her skirt, she fished out a watery-pink crystal. Raising it slowly, she mumbled below her breath and pressed it between my eyes. “A gift of healing.”
Stepping back, I assured her, “I’m perfectly healthy. I can’t accept…”
She closed the space between us, and dropped the crystal into my jacket pocket. Her lips pressed into my ear. “I foresee a time when the rose quartz will heal a wounded heart.”
Unraveling a five, I held it toward her. She refused the money and disappeared in the crowd.
“Let me see that,” Travis said.
I handed him the weighty faceted stone. It had a silver clasp affixed to the tip in case you wanted to wear it on a chain. He rolled it in his palm. “It’s a set up. This psychic thing is about scamming people’s emotions for profit.”
The angular crystal was smooth to the touch. For safekeeping, I slipped it back into my pocket. “Mrs. Curtis is Trudy’s neighbor. She lives alone, probably doesn’t have family around.” I swirled my fingers around my temples. “She’s the type that fuels herself with paranoia.”
“This place is rip-off central, and you’ve been targeted.”
“It was just an old lady screwing around. She probably goes home and has a howl after she freaks people out with her crazy chant.”
Travis dropped my arm and clenched my shoulders. “Admit it. You attract the unstable type, and inside a psychic expo you’re out-numbered. I don’t think it’s a brilliant idea to snoop around.”
“The last thing I’m going to do is provoke any of these clairvoyant mystic types.” I locked my arm in his. “Now, let’s find out what Betts’s hold is on my mother.”
We walked over purple carpet with exploding firework burst designs. I didn’t need to smoke in here. In an arena as large as a football field, my head buzzed with patchouli-fortified air. Like a mega-grocery-store, a maze of aisles was filled with booths that peddled services and products to sort out the inner you. We passed healers and hecklers who offered flower and teacup readings, guardian angel advice, chakra balancing, five-minute connections to ancestral spirits, and a gazillion other on-the-spot services costing from five to fifty dollars.
Opening a tri-fold brochure, Travis asked, “What’s Betts’s specialty? Tarot cards, teacup readings, levitation?”
“Those are just her hobbies. Her forte is aura reading, clearing, and repair.”
“What the hell is that?”
“She looks at spiritual energy. The colors that encircle you. She says she can help clients get in touch with their energy and release blocks.”
“Sounds like a mental enema.”
My feet locked in front of a booth that looked like an old-fashioned candy store. But instead of sweets, dried flower heads, mixed herbs, and powders filled glass jars. A side table held dozens of Easter baskets filled with colorfully labeled oil vials.
A twenty-something guy wearing a black silk shirt and a red sash tied around his waist, swept a silver-handled scoop over the containers. He addressed us in a twangy accent. “Perhaps a love potion?”
Travis scoffed.
I liked the view in front of me, and stared at the silky black folds that cascaded down his buff chest. I decided he had to be a descendent of Don Diego de la Vega—a.k.a. Zorro. Only this hot outlaw peddl
ed herbal potions.
Zorro held a cheesecloth sash the size of my palm. Opening it, he scooped raspberry colored freeze-dried rose heads for a waiting customer. Curling his index finger, he beckoned me closer. A heavy musk traveled from his neck to my nose. “Maybe some lemon verbena. It will cause a rift between lovers, leaving my door of opportunity open.”
Did he hit on all the women that came through? Probably. I pinched my smile. “You don’t look like you need herbal potions to find romance.”
Zorro raised his eyebrows.
Travis lost interest. He snatched my wrist, and pulled me away. “Come on, Rachael.”
“Travis,” I huffed.
He stopped a few booths away. “For real? A southern gypsy dressed in a black silk shirt, who sells herbs and oils. What are you thinking?”
“He’s hot. And don’t try and tell me you think he’s gay.”
“I was not attracted to him, so you don’t have to worry about battling me for his affections.”
His strong arm led me around a corner. As I pulled free of his grip, Travis and I gawked at Betts’s Aura Guidance booth where Mom placed a handful of pamphlets in a plastic bag, then used a credit card imprinter on the card some stranger handed her. Her Dorothy Hamel haircut had grown out, and gray roots bled into her straight edged brunette cut. If her hairstyle had been the only change, I could have dealt. But her growing roots swallowed up the Mom I knew. The one that was there for me unconditionally. After time away at school, I’d thought I could handle this new passion of hers. It was easier when she practiced being psychic in Arizona. Whatever had budded inside of her was foreign to me. Since she’d come back to Canton, being in the same room made me uncomfortable and until now I’d avoided her.
A center table partially-shielded with curtains, rested on a raised platform, and Betts sat across from a wide-eyed stranger, who, I assumed, had paid her to shovel her spiel. The air-conditioning inside the expo would have kept fresh meat from spoiling, but watching her, a molten anger bubbled inside of me. My emotions were tired of being buried. I knew I had to clear the air, and talk to Mom. “Come on,” I told Travis.
“Rachael, Travis,” my mom said.
I gave her a hug. “Hi Mom.”
To give me some alone time, and not wanting anything to do with an intervention, Travis began flipping through the assortment of books and pamphlets for sale. He let out an open-mouthed gawk when he spotted a how-to pamphlet on “The Ten Meditative Steps to Maintaining An Erection.”
“So what do you do here all day?” I asked.
Mom picked up some books that had been left on a table, and organized them into the shelves. “I restock and handle all the appointments.”
“Do you do readings?” I asked.
“No, not yet. I’m still apprenticing.”
I ran my finger down the page of the schedule that lay open. There were five names penciled in for the entire day. “And you’re able to make a living doing this?”
Snapping the book closed she said, “Betts is a highly acclaimed Aura reader. She has a following. People travel—”
“What are you doing?”
She motioned her hands upward. “I’m working.”
Softening my voice, I asked, “Are you being blackmailed for something? What is Betts holding over you?”
She bit her lip and blinked. “Someone paying some attention to me, to my inner-self, makes me happy.”
My voice defied me. Words came out louder and sharper than I meant. “You don’t look happy. You have dark circles under your eyes, you’ve gained weight, and you’ve barely said two words to me or Dad since you’ve been in town. You’ve given up the things you loved. Your identity.”
“Rachael, you have no right to come here and say hurtful things to me. I’m your mother.”
“You’re not acting like a mother. You hung up that hat when you took off without an explanation. In nine months, you only called me twice.”
Like a steam train, I barreled down the tracks, and blurted out the emotional baggage that my mom’s abrupt departure had strapped on my back. I was so focused on launching my words, that I didn’t see the tall, spiky-haired figure move toward me.
Betts spoke in a French accent. “Le circlip de missy.” Listen her missy? Grabbing her own hand, she spoke again. This time, without an accent, “Cerise, no don’t do it.”
Mom drew her hand over her mouth.
“Listen Cherisie Betts, or whoever you really are. You’ve done enough with your relationship wrecking-ball. This conversation is none of your business.”
Betts slapped me across my cheek, derailing my diatribe rant. Apparently, she didn’t appreciate my words of wisdom.
She spoke in a French accent. “Snap out of it, missy.”
My head snapped back, and my ears went bionic, honing in on the pulsing of my beating heart. It took me a moment to register what had happened. A searing sting pulsed. Betts had walloped my face.
Jumping in front of me, Travis shouted, “That was out of line.”
I tasted blood. There was a scuffle. My motor skills were on pause. My vision seemed fuzzy. Was I really seeing a woman in spandex tip over a chair to get at Betts? “Trudy?”
Travis pulled me backward. “Watch out.”
From the middle of the booth, a customer scrambled to make a hasty exit. I peered around Travis, and watched Trudy wrap a toned forearm around Betts’s neck. Mom grabbed Trudy’s waist, and the three of them tumbled toward the table where Betts had been giving a session.
From under the scuffle of shouts and grunts, Betts called, “Hector,” and a man from behind the back curtain came forward.
Stunned from the sting on my face, I forgot to breathe. A rapid fire of hiccups erupted out of me. Pressing his car keys in my hand, Travis barked orders. “Go to my car. I’ll meet you there.”
As I moved away, I glanced over my shoulder. Hector and Travis worked at pulling the yarn ball of bodies apart. The struggle escalated into a yelling match. I watched Trudy trap Betts’s legs between her thighs. Everyone was focused on the wrestling match. No one noticed me as I slipped behind the curtain to the back of the booth. At best, I had a minute to snoop.”
Towers of cardboard boxes were stacked in the back corner. I opened one up. Newspapers padded spirit guidebooks and tarot card sets. Voices I didn’t recognize erupted on the other side of the curtain. I peeked out and heard Trudy accuse my mom of abandonment. I shut the curtain when Mom called Trudy an opportunist.
With stealth speed, I opened two more boxes. What am I doing? Dropping to my knees, I felt fatigued. Last time I checked, selling books and tarot cards was not illegal. Ink stained my hands, and I unfolded the balled-up newspaper I’d grasped from a box. The Colorado Springs Daily local section. The date on the top right was May 18th, 1987. Two months ago. Mechanically, I opened another box. More books. I uncrumpled another newspaper. The Witchita Eagle, Feb 4th, 1987. I felt desperate. Regardless of whether or not Mom and Dad got back together, I wanted Betts out of my family’s life. How could I make that happen? All I’d found was a bunch of newspapers from different cities. So what!
A voice beyond the curtain boomed, “Break it up, ladies.”
I peeped out through a crack in the curtain. Security had arrived.
Trudy asked Travis, “Where’s Rachael?”
“She went to my car.”
Reality drew a fat tear in the corner of my eye. I was the head case. Why did I want to change my mother? She’d made her wishes clear. A hiccup snuck up my throat. My mother’s mentor had decked me, and the only defense Mom offered was a startled face. Struggling against the sting of rejection, I inhaled my emotions. I needed to get a grip, but my gut wouldn’t let me. It kept telling me that there was more than aura readings to Betts. If I couldn’t talk my mom out of leaving her, I needed a new plan, one that would put the head nuts-o somewhere inaccessible.
My eyes readjusted to the dim light behind the booth. Under a card table was a macramé purse with a
leather handle. Reaching my hand into the center pocket, I fanned my fingers past an expo pamphlet, a hairbrush, and a cosmetic case. On the bottom, next to a half empty whisky pint, was a plastic bag filled with yellow powder that looked like dried mustard. In a side pocket, I found a pocketsize memo pad and pulled it out for closer inspection. Names and addresses were listed with scribbled notations. Dedra Gray, Husband deceased, Forest Park, gated. Below it was another notation. Pierce Simmers, Fox Run, travels first and third week. Were these clients? If she were a real aura reader, she wouldn’t have to do homework before she had an appointment. I took a deep breath, blanked my mind, and flipped through the pages.
Footsteps scampered nearby. I didn’t want to be found. Dropping the notebook back into the purse, I crawled under a curtain divider to the next booth.
NOTE TO SELF
A black silk shirt is not cheesy when it’s worn by a hot Zorro.
My gut was right about Betts. She has a bad aura and a wicked hand.
CHAPTER 8
Allegorical Guise
Outside of the expo center, the smell of fresh cut grass infused my head. Rhythmically, I took three deep breaths, and tried to smother the haze in my head. Afternoon storms had swept their gray clouds east, leaving a clear ink sky. I didn’t know how long it would take Travis to meet me, but hoped he’d be quick. My emotions tottered between hurt and anger. I needed to get away from here and organize my head.
Psychics and healers weren’t immune to addictions. Huddled in pockets near the double-door side-entrance, exotic women standing in a huddle blew smoke as they shared their encounters with unreasonable client demands. “I just read what I see, I can’t manipulate it,” a woman in a purple feather-trimmed jacket vented.
From the inside pocket of my denim jacket, I tapped out a cigarette. Tucking the wafer-thin paper between my lips, I plunked down between giant pebbled concrete pots. The maple trees that grew inside them canopied a bench below. Seated next to a potted forest, I dipped my head between my knees and massaged my fingers into my temples.