Yes, he did.
He was unfortunately and insanely in love with Max—an insanely smart man who unfortunately couldn’t admit he was gay. Well, that wasn’t quite right, either. Max admitted that he had sex with men (it was kind of difficult to deny when he was lying naked next to Cooper, who was undeniably a man), but he thought of it as a phase. Max, a psychiatrist, an M.D., actually thought—had convinced himself—that he was a closet heterosexual. He’d even told Cooper that he planned to get married—to a woman. That was a “someday” scenario, of course, and one that Cooper had gotten a good laugh out of. But lately Cooper was getting the feeling—a lover’s intuition—that Max was getting ready to really start dating a woman, and Cooper needed to make his presence felt in some way. Needed Max to realize how much he meant to Cooper. How much Cooper meant to him. So maybe this visit was some kind of shock therapy. They’d talked ad nauseam about boundaries (boundaries were Max’s business), and maybe this was Cooper’s way of crossing a boundary to get on the right side. Or something like that.
Cooper popped a Xanax into his mouth to take the edge off his nerves and followed it with a piece of Arctic Chill gum to get rid of his coffee breath. He was probably hitting the Xanax a little too hard lately, but what the hell. It was either that or X or coke, and Max didn’t approve of any drugs he couldn’t prescribe. So for now it was Xanax and Shiraz. Fuck, Cooper thought suddenly, he used to have fun before he hooked up with this fucked-up closet case.
Well, never mind.
Cooper checked his reflection in the rearview mirror, grimacing to see if there were any wayward cranberry bits stuck in his recently whitened teeth (done with lasers, not those stupid strips). They looked good and so did the rest of him, Cooper decided. Max was crazy, but he had good taste. Cooper was who women referred to when they said all the hot guys were gay. He worked at it, sure. You didn’t have a perfect year-round tan without a little help (even if this was southern California), and you couldn’t maintain a crisply defined six-pack without hitting the gym. But, and this was important, Cooper had very good genes. If the thick mops on both sides of his family were any indication, he wasn’t going to lose a single hair on his head anytime soon. And while you could nip and tuck almost anything, you couldn’t buy good bone structure, and Cooper’s basic architecture was pure F. L. Wright. So the question was definitely not why Max was attracted to him, but why he was attracted to Max.
Max was Cooper’s opposite in almost every way. He was about five seven, short for a guy, and skinny, with thinning strawberry blond hair. Max didn’t give a crap about working out beyond an after-dinner walk, and he had to wear a hat in the sun to keep from burning. Not exactly an imposing figure. But they had exactly the same color eyes: hazel with hints of green and gold. It was strange but also really compelling to look into Max’s face and see himself reflected there.
The eyes they shared had also made a good conversation starter—Cooper’s opening gambit on the night they met, at a fund-raiser for a children’s hospital that Cooper’s father supported as one of his many philanthropic projects. Cooper was there because he earned his very generous keep by organizing his father’s events, and Max was there as a thousand-dollar-a-plate donor. Cooper needed very little small talk to understand which team Max batted for, and so early on, before his second martini even, he came out with it.
“You seem to be wearing my eyes,” he told Max, “so you must know what I’m seeing right now.”
It was kind of lame, but Max laughed, getting it right away. That was the thing about Max—he got Cooper. If only he could get himself as well. That party had been—what—almost a year ago now. They’d broken up twice during that time (well, not really, since they were never officially “seeing” each other), and Cooper had been so miserable that he’d come running back the minute Max called him, both times with no apology or explanation, just “Are you busy right now? Because I can call back if you’re busy.” Although it was never explicitly stated, the reason for both breakups was Max’s insistence that he didn’t see a future for their relationship because eventually he was going to live—and be happy—straight.
“I want to have children, Cooper,” he’d said.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but gay men can have children in this century,” Cooper had answered.
“You know that’s not what I mean,” Max had said, and that had been the end of that conversation. It would have been easier, Cooper thought, if Max had been a bitch about it—or about anything. But that was another thing about Max; he was kind, he really cared about people and he was very generous. Not just with money, because Cooper had plenty of his own, but in other, less flashy ways. Already a year and only a year.
Cooper was smart enough to know that his relationship with Max probably fell into some kind of classic definition of dysfunction. The more Max pushed Cooper away, the more Cooper wanted to be with him. And then as soon as Cooper got used to the idea that he couldn’t be with Max, Max would reel him back in. Self-help manuals would tell Cooper he deserved better, that Max was using him or was too confused to give Cooper what Cooper needed. And it had occurred to Cooper that possibly he was living in his own denial. But deep down Cooper really believed that the two of them were meant to be together. Why, he couldn’t say, but love wasn’t meant to have clear explanations. You couldn’t help who you fell in love with. And this was something Max still didn’t understand.
For a moment Cooper was torn. It wasn’t too late to change his mind and leave. Max would never be the wiser and they would just have a nice dinner later tonight, maybe a movie…. No, he was going in. Cooper gathered the elegant glass vase in which he’d arranged five fat sunflowers as a sort of for-your-office-which-I’ve-never-seen ruse, locked the car door behind him and ran to the clinic entrance with one arm shielding his head from the rain.
The lobby was so plush that it looked like a hotel foyer. Impressive, Cooper thought. No surprise Max got two bills for each fifty-minute session. He could only imagine what the good doctors in the plastic surgery clinic got for a boob job. At the end of the lovely lobby was a large steel-and-glass reception desk shaped like a half moon. At the center of this desk was a woman shaped, Cooper thought unkindly, like a full moon. It was kind of weird that a group so obviously concerned with appearances would hire such a large woman to helm the front desk. He’d have to ask Max what was up with that, Cooper decided as he approached.
“Hi—um—” Cooper couldn’t find a name tag on her. “I’m here for Dr. Raymond.”
She looked up and regarded Cooper with cool, dark eyes. “Do you have an appointment?” she asked. She’d actually be really pretty if she weren’t quite so heavy, Cooper thought. She had smooth olive skin and lovely hair—a rich chestnut color that he could tell was totally natural—that fell like a curling waterfall down her back. Fifty pounds, he thought. If she could lose fifty pounds she’d be a knockout. He had a sudden irrational fear that this was the woman Max had set his sights on.
“Sir? Do you have an appointment with Dr. Raymond?”
“Sorry, no. No, I don’t. Can you just buzz him for me?”
“What’s your name please, sir?”
“Cooper.” He had started to sweat. The lobby was too hot. It wasn’t like this was the goddamn North Pole. Why did they keep it subtropical in here?
The receptionist gave him a manufactured smile as she dialed Max’s extension. “Still raining out there?” she asked.
“Um, yeah, it’s raining. Yes.”
“Dr. Raymond? Hi, there’s a Mr. Cooper down here? He doesn’t have an appointment. Yes. No. Yes. Okay. You, too, Dr. Raymond. You’re welcome.” She hung up her phone and smiled at Cooper again. “Dr. Raymond asked me to tell you that he’s sorry but he won’t be able to meet with you today. He had an emergency session this morning and has to work through lunch. But if you want, I can schedule an appointment for you.” Two of the multiple lines on her phone started ringing and she held up a finger in the “please wa
it” gesture as she answered them. Cooper could feel his heart pounding and his ears burning.
Yes, he’d been a fool to come here. He had nobody to blame but himself.
Before the woman could get off her calls, he placed the sunflowers on top of her desk, mouthed the words “These are for you” and stalked out of the lobby.
His cell phone started ringing before he could even get into the car.
“What the fuck, Max?” Cooper slid into the driver’s seat and quickly swallowed another Xanax.
“Cooper, what are you doing? I’ve told you—”
The asshole never raised his voice. It was amazing—no matter what was going on, he always sounded like a shrink. “Told me what? I wanted to see you. You’re not with a patient. You had me tossed out like some…some…”
“Cooper…”
“No, forget it Max, just fucking forget it!” And then, to his horror, Cooper started to cry.
“Cooper, are you crying? Listen to me, okay? It’s not—”
“I can’t talk to you right now. Fuck you and fuck dinner.” Cooper punched the “end” button on his phone and tossed it onto the passenger seat. He put his head on the steering wheel and allowed himself to wail like a stuck pig for two full minutes. How he hated this feeling—this part of it. If only he could walk out of this relationship like he had with every other man he’d ever been involved with.
It was going to take more than love to turn Max around. He was a shrink, for God’s sake—he treated people like himself. And Cooper needed something more powerful than Xanax, because he was starting to turn into a basket case. He pulled a couple of tissues from the glove compartment and blew his nose loudly. Fuck it, he was calling Marina. Max loathed when he did that—said Cooper was being ripped off and might as well light a fire with his money. Said it would be better if he did burn his money, because psychics were dangerous: they gave you false hope, told you what you wanted to hear and lied through their teeth. This was, probably, the only topic on which Max came close to losing his cool—it was almost funny in a way.
Cooper had gotten a good vibe from Marina as soon as he’d met her at that ridiculous holiday party. The rest of the evening had been a total disaster—Max avoiding him like the plague, even though they’d shown up together—but it had been worth it for those few minutes with Marina. She’d called right away that he was gay—okay, not much work guessing that, even though generally he flew under most people’s gaydar—but what was interesting was that she also told him that he was in love with someone who wasn’t free. Hit the nail on the head right there, she did.
Cooper had called her to make an appointment a few weeks later, when he and Max were on one of their mini breakups. She was really good—knew all about Max and came out with it before Cooper even had a chance to settle into his chair. Their session was short—Marina said she always kept the first visit that way so that she didn’t absorb too much of her new client’s energy—but she’d told him that he and Max would get back together and that she saw a rough road ahead unless Cooper was willing to do some “spirit work.” Just as she’d said, they’d gotten back together, and when he told Max about her he got all that hell. So out of some weird respect for Max and his opinions, he hadn’t called Marina again. But fuck him.
Cooper punched the numbers into his cell phone and listened to it ring. He looked out of his window. It had finally stopped raining and the clouds were starting to break. A shaft of sunlight slipped through one of these and shone through Cooper’s windshield. After several rings, just when he was starting to tear up again, she picked up.
“Hi, Marina,” he said. “It’s Cooper. Can you help me?”
Chapter 8
Marina woke up to the dry howl of a mad wind. The Santa Ana wind, known simply in some circles as el diablo or “the devil,” had arrived on schedule and with a sly wink in time for Halloween. Twenty-four hours later, it was still swirling around caved-in pumpkins and blowing remnants of bathroom tissue and black crepe toward the ocean. Marina heard her windows rattle and her first thought was that she was going to have a busy day. Her second thought was that it was a good thing, because it was her birthday. Turning thirty-five meant that she had only two years left to reach her goal, which was to have enough money to stop working and do whatever she wanted. She wouldn’t call it retirement, a sad word that conjured images of golf clubs and guided tours. What she was after was the opposite of retirement—a new life. Today, at least, the weather would help.
There were reasons why Marina welcomed this wind that so many hated. When it raced down the mountains and out to the coast, the Santa Anas grew hot and arid, sparking wildfires and setting nerves on edge. People complained of dry skin, flat hair, nosebleeds and headaches. But it also swept away haze and fog, leaving the landscape so bright that the colors seemed supersaturated and the air sparkled with particles of desert dust blown west. Marina relished that clarity and the way she felt when the wind moved through her body, so dry it made her shiver.
The main reason Marina liked the Santa Ana season was that it brought in business. There were better and worse times of year for psychics, and people usually moved wavelike with them. The holidays, for example, were busy, whereas late spring and early summer were slow. Days that were warm and sunny were generally quiet, and when it rained there was always a rush. But nothing brought in wanderers desperate for psychic counsel like the Santa Ana winds.
Marina had slept well, in spite of or maybe because of the wind, and it took more effort than usual to pull herself from her large down-covered bed. Frugal in most other ways, Marina splurged on anything related to the luxury of sleep. Both her four-poster pine bed frame and her mattress were top of the line and covered with thick, rich linens. Filmy white mosquito netting flowed over the frame, making the whole effort look and feel like an island devoted to slumber. If she had been explaining the elaborate bed to a client, Marina would have pointed to the influence of Neptune and Pisces in her birth chart. Pisces, at the very end of the zodiac, was weary and loved the escape of sleep. But Marina knew that her own sleep shrine had more to do with the avoidance of dreams.
Marina knew that she dreamed—everybody did—because biology demanded it, but she also knew that her mind was powerful enough to choose not to remember these dreams. Lately this had not been as easy as she would have liked. Weird flashes of light and ominous images had begun creeping into her unconscious, and she’d been plagued by an insistent feeling of dread. In her dreams she was running, and sometimes she woke up with a start, the smell of smoke thick in her nostrils, only to find there was nothing in the house to account for the odor. Worse than this, though, Marina’s mother had lately made a few walk-on appearances in her dreams—always Marina’s personal signal of subconscious unrest, like the achy feeling one got before the flu took hold. But there was nothing to be gained by trying to interpret dreams, Marina told herself. As far as she was concerned, they were nothing more than random electrical impulses. Of course, she’d never admit as much to her clients. Portentous dreams were powerful tools in the psychic’s arsenal.
Rubbing the last traces of sleep from her eyes, Marina laid out her clothes for the day and took a quick hot shower. She’d cut her hair short after leaving Florida and had finally stopped coloring it, too. It had grown out to the color of strong tea, a darker brown than she remembered it’s being, and now curled around her shoulders. There was also no longer any need for the heavy theatrical makeup she’d once worn, but Marina continued to use the black liner and deep shadow on her green eyes. California was as forgiving as Florida had been demanding, but Marina still wanted some camouflage.
All in all, Marina was pleased with the progress she’d made since she’d left that swamp. It had taken some time to set herself up, of course, and more time to stop looking over her shoulder, but her own fear had finally given way to something resembling confidence. And this was ironic, because what one really needed to make it in her business was access to fear. Not one’s own f
ear, mind you, but fear in general. If she allowed herself to become frightened as she had in Florida, she was ineffective, almost paralyzed. It wasn’t difficult to find fear. Wherever there were people, there was fear. And fear was what motivated people to come to Marina. Everyone was afraid of something—afraid of being alone; afraid of not having enough money, love or recognition; afraid of the unknown, the unusual, failure, pain and death. Death was the big one, the underlying fear of so many smaller ones. Fear was Marina’s stock in trade, and there was no shortage of it to go around.
Of course, there was the argument that people consulted psychics because of desire, because they wanted love or money or fame. But Marina knew that desire merely masked fear. People wanted to know what the stars predicted, what the cards foretold and what their futures held, because they wanted to make sure that their futures existed. In many ways it didn’t matter what the future held as long as there was a future to look into. That at any moment it would all stop, that there would be a vast maw of blank, unknowable eternity to contend with, was what frightened people most of all. Marina had always understood this—had always known that the color of the human heart was very dark.
Fear existed in abundance here, twenty miles north of “America’s Finest City,” as it did everywhere else. But what made this place special and what made Marina’s job so much easier was that this population was not only fearful but so willing. People here had an unlimited appetite for the cosmic, supernatural and extrasensory with very little of the usual skepticism. She hadn’t quite figured out if this willingness came from innocence or an openness of spirit or was just geographically based stupidity. Perhaps, Marina thought, it came from an underlying sense of optimism. Perhaps hope made up the fabric of belief in the first place.
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