At any rate, it was working for her. She’d been able to set up shop in Encinitas with little problem other than competition from the three other psychics in town. The only things Marina had to do were to be better and to be more expensive. Better was easy. Since she didn’t believe in “real” psychic ability, Marina had no doubt that her competition was made up of charlatans with varying degrees of talent in the art of deception. There were likely several who practiced self-deception as well—a big problem for many psychics. Once you started buying into your own line of bullshit you were finished. This had never been an issue for Marina. Since she was a child she’d known that people would pay well to hear things about themselves that they could figure out if they just looked into the mirror. There was a big difference between a talent and a gift, and Marina never confused the former, which she did have, with the latter, which didn’t exist. She also knew that when she was on her game there was nobody who could beat her. Not that anyone seemed particularly willing to try.
As far as what she charged, Marina had learned this: people didn’t want to skimp on their psychic services. Paying more meant you were getting quality. You wouldn’t buy your future off a sale rack, would you?
Marina’s decision to charge more, to take in as much as she could, had resulted in a small but growing nest egg. It wasn’t enough to make her feel totally secure (she didn’t know how much money it would take to accomplish that), but it certainly took the edge off. Marina was determined to never again feel the sense of desperation that had tortured her those last few months in Florida, not least because she despised what it brought out in her. It was a point of pride for her that despite plenty of opportunity, she never drained her wells dry. She took what she could get from her clients, sure, and sometimes more than they should have given her considering how much they had, but there was always a line she drew and would never cross. Except she had crossed it, in Florida, when that back-against-the-wall insecurity had made her weak and greedy.
It took no effort for Marina to summon the memory of the sweltering, nightmarish day when she’d looked into her tarot cards and predicted disaster for Mrs. Golden’s son. She could still see the interplay of fear and excitement on the old woman’s face as she’d turned the cards. It was almost as if Mrs. Golden wanted the worst possible news, as if she was goading Marina on. “I’ll do anything,” she’d said, almost an invitation.
Marina bit her lip, ashamed even now at what had happened next. No need to get so worked up, she’d told Mrs. Golden. There was always a way of warding off evil, but she’d need money—quite a bit more than usual—for certain candles and crystals that could only be obtained in certain places. Marina had never before stooped to that level. Candles and crystals were the oldest Gypsy fraud tricks in the book—low-class all the way—and she hated herself for resorting to it even as she pushed forward. But Mrs. Golden was completely unfazed. Oh, yes, the candles, she knew all about those, she’d told Marina. Another psychic she saw—well, actually a couple, but please don’t be jealous, dear, you’re far and away the best—had told her to buy those candles before. She knew they were expensive, but what did it matter, this was her son they were talking about.
And Mrs. Golden had come prepared, as if she’d known in advance that this was going to be a costly reading. Her tatty purse contained a stack of hundred-dollar bills, which she took out and placed next to the tarot cards. “How much do you need?” she’d asked, and after that it was only a matter of Marina’s calculating the difference she needed to get herself to California. But as forthcoming as she’d been with her cash, Mrs. Golden still surprised Marina with what she offered up at the end of their session.
Marina held it in her hand now, the brilliant ruby ring dangling from its golden chain. Mrs. Golden had taken it off and pressed it into Marina’s hand so firmly that the sharp edges of the stone dug into her palm.
“Please,” she’d said, “I want you to wear this. You can keep him safe if you wear it. Until the danger is past him.”
Marina had studied Mrs. Golden’s face carefully then, her first instinct telling her it was some kind of trap. It wasn’t possible for this woman to entrust her with such a valuable and sentimental piece.
“It’s not necessary,” Marina told her. “I don’t need—”
“Please, Marina, please. I know it will work. Wear it next to your heart. It will help you protect him.” Marina started to protest one more time, but Mrs. Golden interrupted again before the words could fall from her mouth. “When he’s safe, you can give it back to me,” she said. A flicker of indecision passed over her face. “Or the next time we see each other. All right?”
That would have been the moment, Marina thought now, to make a final protest—to tell Mrs. Golden that she couldn’t take the ring because there wasn’t going to be a next time. But the old woman continued to fix Marina with a look that was both searing and pleading. And then Marina saw herself slipping the chain around her own neck and heard herself promising the woman that she would keep the ring close to her body, away from the eyes of all others, until the moment she returned it.
She’d at least made good on that promise, Marina thought, staring at the ring’s sparkle before replacing it in the soft place between her breasts, the spot it had occupied since that August day. It felt heavier than usual today and Marina had to adjust it several times to keep it from poking into her flesh. It had been six months before she tried to contact Mrs. Golden. Marina had never intended to keep the ring, but there was always a reason why it wasn’t yet time to return it. She didn’t want anyone from her old life to know where she was, she’d rationalized at first. And then it was that she’d wanted to wait until Mrs. Golden—who was probably upset about her sudden absence—had time to settle down. And when she did make the call at last, the phone number was no longer in service. Marina had tried, although not very hard, to track down Mrs. Golden once or twice after that and had came up empty each time. Now, more than a year since she’d last seen the woman, Marina had arrived at a sort of peace with the idea that she’d made an attempt to return the ring and that by keeping it she was honoring Mrs. Golden’s wishes. What Marina was less easy with was that she’d come to view the ring as a sort of lucky charm, the kind that would stop working as soon as she let it go. For someone who believed in neither luck nor charms, this bit of superstition was like a small but troublesome pebble trapped in a tight shoe.
Marina patted the ring in its place and shrugged off her doubts. It was her birthday, after all, not a time to be morbid. Instead of grinding beans in her own kitchen, she decided to treat herself to a large cup of coffee and drink it down on Swami’s Beach, where she could watch the surfers negotiate the waves. The beach was situated in the corner angle between Marina’s small house in the scrubby hills of Cardiff-by-the-Sea and her storefront office off the Coast Highway in Encinitas. There were any number of coffeehouses between those two points, but Marina favored Rosa’s, a tiny shacklike stop that served strong coffee, fresh-squeezed citrus juices and a limited selection of baked goods. There was no special language one had to learn to order (the coffee came in two sizes, small and large) or chatter to engage in while one stood in line. Rosa herself, often the only person working the counter, didn’t talk to her customers beyond what was absolutely necessary to fill their orders. All of which suited Marina perfectly.
Outside, the air was electrified and warm. Marina could feel the static crackle in the atmosphere even before the inevitable sparks flew from her keys and car door to her fingers. She parked in a lot next to the beach and walked the short distance to Rosa’s stall. As she stood in front of Rosa contemplating whether to have an apple fritter or a pumpkin empanada, the dry wind pressed her skirt to her legs, then lifted it from underneath like a hand.
“I’ll have a large coffee and one of those,” Marina said, pointing to the empanadas.
Rosa nodded without offering a smile and prepared the order in silence. Marina noticed that a few strands of Rosa�
�s usually neat ponytail had come loose and were falling across her eyes, which looked strained and dark-circled. Normally placid and efficient, Rosa slipped pouring Marina’s coffee, spilling some on her hand and provoking a couple of whispered oaths. The wind, Marina thought. In one way or another it affected everyone.
Once on the beach, sandals in her hand and sand rough under her bare feet, Marina was relieved to find that despite Rosa’s sour mood, her coffee was as good as ever. The empanada, too, surprisingly light and spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg, had been a good choice. A couple of curious gulls circled Marina, squawking their desire to share, but she ignored their pleas. It was likely that she’d be working through until dinner and wouldn’t get a chance to eat anything substantial in the meantime, so she was going to consume every last bite. Marina enjoyed a good meal as much as the average person, but had never been passionate about food. Plus, staying slim was as important to her success as any learned skill.
Marina looked out at the ocean, awed by its churning array of colors. Green and gray mixed with patches of deep blue and the swirling red of seaweed. The waves were high and she wondered at how few surfboards she saw dipping in and out of the foam. Usually there was nothing that kept those dedicated surfers out of the water: not vicious undertows, storms or even the threat of dumped sludge and waste. But there were only a couple of wet-suited figures far out in the waves now. Marina’s eyes wandered to the water’s edge, where a barefoot couple strolled across the wet sand. They were physically mismatched; she was tall and thin and he was several inches shorter and thick around the waist, but they were laughing and holding hands and Marina could tell that they were comfortable with each other. They walked together in rhythm, each knowing the pace of the other’s steps. There was an ease in their togetherness that suggested perfect complicity, and for the first time in a long while Marina felt a pang of loneliness.
Making a living as a psychic was similar to be being a masseuse when it came to dating. Potential partners were intrigued at first, maybe even dismissive, but pretty soon they started to want her “services” for free. Nor did she want to get into a discussion about her line of work with people she didn’t know. And it wasn’t as if she had a social network through which to meet men. She was closer to some clients than others and those connections were what passed as friendships these days. But it was an incontrovertible rule that she never become romantically involved with a client.
Besides all of this, though, Marina was smart enough to know that her early experience with sex and men—much of which could easily be considered child abuse—hadn’t given her the best foundation on which to build a decent relationship. The word damaged flitted through Marina’s head, as it had many times before. It was a fact of her business that she let precious few people get close to her, but that alone couldn’t explain why she had always been unable to open herself up to a man. There was too much risk. The few times she’d come close, Marina had felt raw and exposed to the point of pain, as if her skin had been peeled from her body.
Still, she wasn’t exactly a nun; there had been men in her life and in her bed, although none who had stayed for too long. But it had been a long time since Marina had felt even the most casual of caresses. She reached into her shirt to make sure the ring was secure in its position. It had been so long, in fact, that the only man who had gotten close enough to catch a glimpse of that precious gem was her gay client, Cooper, who had boundary issues and thought, before she’d set him straight, that it was okay to touch her hair, clothing and jewelry in the interest of assessing fashion. Of course, Marina mentally revised, she hadn’t exactly set him straight, but she had gotten him to stop touching her.
The couple continued on their way and out of her field of vision. She wondered what was next for them today. A leisurely breakfast, perhaps at one of the many quaint little beach cafés? Or maybe they’d go home, to the house that they shared. She’d make him an omelet with chanterelle mushrooms and goat cheese. Maybe he’d make it for her. Or maybe they’d skip food altogether and go straight to bed, their bodies comfortable and knowing with their deep, quiet passion.
Marina swallowed the last of her coffee, tasting the sea salt that had blown onto her cup. A bitter taste had crept into her mouth and into her mood. It was too windy to be outside, she thought. Best to leave the beach now before that rush of air turned into a storm inside her head.
Chapter 9
Marina stood up, brushed the sand from the folds of her skirt and started mentally planning out her day. She’d get to her office early and, given the Santa Ana winds, might even get a walk-in before her first appointment. Although she preferred a set schedule, she had to keep time open for walk-ins. Every regular, after all, had once been a new client. And despite the fact that she had accumulated a nice, steady set of returning clients, most of Marina’s regulars did not refer her to their friends or acquaintances. They didn’t want to share her and probably felt that the more clients she had, the less time she’d be able to devote to them, as if there wouldn’t be enough to go around when it came to their time at the table.
Marina preferred working in her office and tried to avoid making house calls. Sometimes, though, it was inevitable. She had one later today, in fact.
Right around rush hour, she’d be heading into the well-tended labyrinth of Rancho Santa Fe to see Madeline, who’d been ordered to bed rest by her obstetrician. Women like Madeline were Marina’s bread and butter—rich, dissatisfied and looking for meaning anywhere but inside themselves. A couple of months after Marina had been hired to work at Madeline’s house in December (the last party, thankfully, that Marina had worked), Madeline came to see Marina in a panic about not being able to get pregnant. Marina had run her standard game, which was to collect information over the course of the first couple of visits and judge how much a client was willing to invest to get the answers and outcomes they were looking for. Madeline, as transparent as a sheet of plastic wrap, had made it very easy.
There was a baby in Madeline’s near future, Marina told her (the Empress card showed this in Madeline’s first tarot spread), but there were also impediments that had to be cleared before conception could take place. Her aura, for one thing, was muddy and thick. This was creating a barrier that the baby’s pure spirit could not cross. Another problem was the presence within Madeline that refused to yield the space needed to grow and nurture a new life. That presence was Madeline’s younger self, Marina explained, her “inner child.” That child had been neglected in some way and had refused to grow up with Madeline. Now that spirit was crying out against being forgotten again to make way for another being—crying out so loud, in fact, that Marina had heard the wail as soon as Madeline walked in.
Madeline’s eyes got wider with each one of these pronouncements and she nodded along as if to say Yes, yes, that is exactly right. Her only question after absorbing it all was what Marina could do to help. Cost was no object.
Marina burned red and white candles and sage and directed her client to drink a blend of potent herbs imbued with special properties (in reality a combination of raspberry leaf and green tea) that would help her fertility. She gave Madeline small samples of these items and instructed her to perform the same rituals at home.
Marina’s thinking was that as soon as Madeline felt that responsibility had been lifted from her—that some outside force was taking care of her situation—she would relax enough to get pregnant. It happened this way with women often enough. They tried and tried to no avail, but as soon as they gave up and decided to adopt or travel the world instead, they conceived. If this didn’t end up happening, Marina had a backup plan: She would tell Madeline that the forces working against her were too strong, and that different spirit work was needed. If it came down to it, Marina would even tell Madeline that she’d been cursed for wrongdoing in a previous life and that she would have to work off the karmic debt.
Fortunately, Marina hadn’t had to resort to her alternate plans. Although Marina had warn
ed that the process might take up to a year, Madeline conceived five months later. Marina, not Madeline’s husband or physician, was the first to hear the good news. Madeline flew into her office waving a positive pregnancy test stick and weeping tears of joy, completely convinced that the baby was entirely Marina’s doing. That was the moment that Marina became the most important person in Madeline’s life and was put on a very generous retainer—an unexpected but happy development.
At almost three months Madeline had started spotting and she’d been housebound ever since. Now, terrified of losing the baby, she needed Marina more than ever. This new wrinkle worried Marina a little. She had to weigh both possible outcomes and prepare for each one. If Madeline managed to get through her pregnancy without miscarrying, Marina would take the credit. If not, Madeline would need to be convinced that it was her own fault. Either way, Marina would have to remain necessary. Madeline was her most reliable and profitable client.
So she would travel to Madeline’s big house in Rancho Santa Fe with its imported Italian marble, Chinese roof tiles and Danish furniture. She would take her tarot cards, her sage, her candles and her tea. She would set it all up in the large room that had been made into a nursery while Madeline reclined next to her on an oversize velvet couch. And then Madeline would talk and talk, spilling out the most intimate details of her life: her wishes, her fears, her secrets. Yes, Madeline was easy. It was the husband, Andrew, Marina wasn’t so sure of. She hoped he wouldn’t be home this evening, but his absence was unlikely; he’d been hovering over Madeline like an anxious cloud almost every time Marina had come to the house.
“My wife loves you,” he’d told her on one visit, echoing the same sense of disbelief he had first offered at the party so many months before. Andrew had gone through some physical changes since that night. His skin had become bluish gray around the jawline and there were shadows under his angry-looking eyes. There was always a bristling hostility about him; it was so strong that Marina sometimes thought she could hear him growl. The way he spoke to her, in fact, was very much as if he were a big guard dog just looking for an excuse to attack. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” he’d said on her last visit as she headed up the stairs to see Madeline. He’d added a little laugh at the end as if he was just joking, but Marina could hear the threat. Madeline had mentioned many times how important this baby was to her husband.
The Grift Page 7