Follow the Dotted Line

by Nancy Hersage

  “This is so totally cool,” he said, gawking at the twenty-foot trunk that stretched from floor to the peak of the A-frame. A dozen branches fanned out four to six feet on either side. “Is it real?”

  “At one time” Lorna confirmed. “It was on property a few houses down. Hit by lightning. See the charred mark on that side there?” She pointed to a splash of black on the nearly white flesh of the tree. “I asked if I could have it, then cut it down, stripped the bark, put a polyurethane finish on the wood, and trimmed it to fit in this space.” The statuesque tree arched above them, casting dramatic shadows across the kitchen and adjacent dining and living rooms.

  “You could hang ball caps or even cowboy hats on those branches,” Harley observed excitedly.

  “I could,” Lorna replied, without additional comment.

  “But she won’t,” said Andy, making the comment for her. “Now before Harley decides to climb it, is there a bellhop to show us to our rooms?”

  “Just me.” Lorna bowed and gestured toward the upstairs bedrooms. “Right this way.”

  A bit after 1:00 p.m. the members of the little reconnaissance committee got back in the car and snaked their way through Alpine Woods Estates. Streets like Edelweiss Avenue and Tannenbaum Drive were lined with large log cabins, quaint German gingerbread houses, and even a few mini-Tudor castles. This was a landscape free of pink flamingos and barely tolerant of garden gnomes. The only acceptable kitsch for such an upper-class wilderness was hand-carved statuary of brown bears loping through the trees.

  Andy grew uncomfortably conscious of her labored breathing, as they turned onto Hauptstrasse, the street she knew best. The real estate on this block was less pricey than on Lorna’s, but it was far more familiar. There was the house, her former house, standing quietly where it had always stood, weatherworn and dusty in a slightly disheveled yard. But it was not abandoned or unoccupied. Not by a long shot. Because in the center of the front picture window glowed a blue neon hand, the mark of the palm reader.

  “Whew,” whistled Lorna, as she eased the car to the side of the road. “There goes the neighborhood.”

  “Can’t believe the homeowners association hasn’t tried to burn her at the stake,” Andy thought aloud.

  Lorna shook her head slowly. “If they haven’t thought of it, I’ll be sure to suggest it at the next meeting. There’s no car in the driveway. Maybe she’s not home.”

  “The sign’s on. She probably parked her car in the garage. I can’t believe she might actually be in there,” Andy whispered, with a mixture of horror and thrill.

  “Let’s go see her,” Harley piped up.

  “Oh, god, I don’t think I’m ready,” Andy admitted. “I wonder what she looks like.”

  Harley reached for the door handle. “I’ll find out.”

  “Wait a minute!” Andy demanded. This was a distinctly different Harley from the one she’d push out of the car in Texas. “Where are you going?”

  “To knock on the door.”

  “Where’s your stage fright?”

  “Huh?”

  “You were scared out of your boxers to go up to Tilda’s door in Harlingen. What’s happened?”

  “Um, I don’t know, Aunt Andy,” he said, crinkling his skull-capped brow. “I guess now that I’ve found myself, you know, that’s kind of made me a new man.”

  Lorna turned to the backseat to say something, and Andy grabbed her forearm. “We’re not exploring this, Lorna. Now or ever. Move on, quickly.”

  The CPA nodded a silent apology for giving into the temptation and said, “You can’t just knock on the door, Harley. We need a plan first.”

  “We do?”

  “Yes, we do,” Andy reiterated. “Maybe one of us should say we want a reading.”

  “A reading?” Harley asked.

  “She’s a palm reader. One of us could pretend we want a reading,” Lorna explained. “Ask her something we want to know about the future.”

  “I don’t have to pretend,” Harley bubbled like a new man. “I’ll do it for real!”

  “Stop,” Andy barked. “Let’s think this through. I like the strategy, Lorna. The question is, who should go?”

  “I should go!” Harley shouted.

  Andy hushed him with the scowl she reserved for yapping dogs. “By rights, I should go,” she reckoned. “But there’s a chance Tilda’s seen a picture of me, so I don’t think I can do it.”

  “True. And you know me; I can’t keep a straight face. I’m bound to crack up the minute she pulls out the crystal ball.”

  “She’s got a crystal ball?” Harley asked, excitedly. The man-child was now chomping at the bit. “Let it be me, Aunt Andy. Please!”

  The women looked at one another in silent consternation. There really was no other alternative.

  “He’ll need some money,” Lorna noted, giving in to the inevitable.

  “And some question to ask,” Andy added, as she pulled out her wallet.

  Harley leaned forward, practically catapulting himself into the front seat. He put his hand out and took the two twenty-dollar bills. “I already have my question!” he said, twisting his contorted body back toward the rear door and propelling it open.

  “What question?” Andy wanted to know.

  “The one I’m going to ask her to answer with her, you know, crystal ball. Isn’t that the way it works?”

  The women’s eyes met once more in mutual dismay. Neither had ever been to a palm reader.

  Lorna smiled supportively. “What’s the question, Harley?”

  “I’m going to ask her if I’m really Jewish!”

  Beaming like a tourist eager to test his language skills, he closed the door and began to march resolutely toward the cabin.

  “Stop!” Andy called in a stage whisper. “Harley!”

  He halted and turned, obedient but befuddled. “What?”

  “Take off the skullcap.”

  “Huh?”

  “Take off the skullcap,” Andy repeated. “She may be a scam artist, but she’s surely not an idiot. At least give her a chance to conjure up an answer before she figures out what you want her to say.”

  “Oh,” he nodded. “But I like my yarmulke, Aunt Andy. It gives me strength.”

  “Take it off.”

  Reluctantly, he tossed the beanie back into the car.

  “And keep your eyes open,” she warned.

  He stared at this last instruction, as if he wasn’t sure what she meant. Finally, he lifted his eyelashes until she could see the curvature of his eyeball.

  “Okay, I’ll try to keep them open,” he said, looking grave, then he turned toward the blue neon palm and trotted off in a lilting gait his aunt had never before witnessed.

  The soon-to-be-retired accountant and the soon-to-be-forgotten writer sat in the car biting their respective nails. They watched Harley spring onto the front deck and knock with uncharacteristic aplomb. The door opened slowly like a dark, gaping mouth, shielding its answerer in shadow. The women strained to see the face of the figure inside, but only a misty outline was visible. Then they watched, as Harley stepped into the deep throat of the enemy’s lair.

  With maternal intensity, the two waited as time ticked on. Ten minutes. Fifteen. Thirty.

  “How much future do you think forty bucks will get him?” Lorna wondered.

  Andy had bigger worries. “I just hope he doesn’t spill his guts.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I hope he’s not telling her he’s Mark’s nephew. And that we’re sitting out here in the car.”

  “Has it occurred to you that Harley could be in there telling Mark who he is?” Lorna said.

  Just as in Texas, the thought had managed to elude her. Andy unfurled a familiar grimace, conceding the point.

  “Why do you keep assuming he’s dead, Andrea? Tilda may be clairvoyant, but I doubt that you are.”

  The possibility of Mark’s return to the living freed Andy to relax a bit. “You’re right. You’re right. The a
shes could just be a ruse. But why send them to Mitch if Mark isn’t dead?”

  Neither one of them had an answer for what, at this point, had become a recurrent and rhetorical question. They continued their wait in silence.

  At minute forty-two, the cabin door yawned open, and Andy’s nephew stepped out of the darkness and back into the glare of the temporal world. This time the silhouette of a conspicuously proportioned woman paused momentarily in the doorframe before disappearing into the cabin.

  “I think I saw her,” Andy cooed.

  “Me, too.” Lorna echoed, excitedly. She turned her attention to the boy. “Harley appears to have survived. Although he looks a little deflated.”

  Lorna was right. The get-up in Harley’s gait was gone. He looked zombiesque, as he moved mindlessly toward the car, opened the rear door, and climbed in.

  “How’d it go?” Andy prompted.

  “I am in the Aura,” he mumbled.

  “In the Aura?” Lorna asked. “What does that mean?”

  “Her Aura,” he replied. “Tilda is a very powerful, beautiful Spirit. She smells like roses. Her voice is wise and kind. She told me she has been a Medium for many lives.”

  “I’m not sure I understand,” Lorna said.

  Andy studied his normally languid facial features, which looked even more inert than usual. “You’re not blinking,” she said. “I want you to blink, Harley.”

  He didn’t. “I’m in the Aura,” he chanted again.

  “Oh, my god, you’re not making any sense.”

  A fervent hand descended meaningfully over Andy’s arm, signaling the need for calm. “What happened in there, Harley?” Lorna tried again. “Just tell us.”

  He answered with trance-like understanding. “A reading is a very deep experience. Very primal.”

  “Primal?” Andy scoffed.

  “It is a link between this world and the other star systems.”

  Andy’s impatience rumbled; Lorna squeezed harder. “Harley,” the CPA smiled, “tell us more about what Tilda said.”

  “She told me things I didn’t know. Important things. I am the Page of Pentacles,” he revealed with obvious pleasure.

  “Really?” Lorna crooned quickly, in counterpoint to the volcanic activity emanating from the woman next to her. “And what is the Page of Pentacles?”

  “A child of new beginnings. Standing on the edge of great adventure.”

  Containment failed, as Andy broke the bonds of Lorna’s grip. “What unmitigated bullshit!” she croaked. “Now blink your goddamned eyes!”

  Doubtless in the clutches of a power greater than his aunt, Harley Davidson did not flinch. “I am like a newborn soul, searching for my place in the universe,” he intoned. “I am stumbling, trying to find my way. I am without direction. Groping for Truth. Seeking the Shining Light of my existence.” Here, he faltered for a moment, evidently dazzled by the Shining Light. Finally, he found his emotional footing again. Focusing his unimpeded pupils on his aunt, the young man shared the palm reader’s prognostication, “And I have always been and will always be—Jewish.”

  With that, Harley slumped back into his seat, unfurled his lids, and closed his eyes.

  Not sure the mini-séance was concluded, the two women waited in bewildered silence for a minute.

  “Are you okay?” Lorna finally ventured.

  He grinned contentedly but didn’t speak.

  “Did you see Uncle Mark?” Andy demanded, refusing to tiptoe around his spiritual sensitivity.

  “I didn’t ‘see’ anything. I experienced it, Aunt Andy,” he said, eyes still blissfully shut.

  “Well, did you experience your Uncle Mark anywhere while you were in there?” she snarled.

  There was a detectable crack in his beatitude. “Um, no,” he answered.

  “What was the one thing I asked you to do, Harley? The one thing!”

  Slowly, his lashes rose, and his pupils made their reentry into the real world.

  “I told you to keep your eyes open!” she bellowed.

  “I did!” he said, reflexively. “They were open the whole time.”

  “In some kind of hypnotic state!”

  “No. No. I was conscious. The whole time. I swear.”

  “So what did you notice in there?”

  “Notice?”

  “What did you observe, Harley?”

  He stared blankly, as a little gestalt made its way through the underdeveloped network of his adolescent synapses. When it did, he realized for the first time that the trip to the fortuneteller was not supposed to be about him; it was supposed to be about the whereabouts of Uncle Mark. “Oh, right,” he stammered. “What did I notice?”

  “Yes! What did you notice?”

  Lorna moved in quickly to mediate. “Think, Harley. Just try to remember anything that might be important.”

  He squirmed against the slick, buttery leather upholstery, as if he were trying to burrow his way out of the car. His audience waited with bated breath, as he strained to recall anything that might satisfy the demands of his elders.

  “Um. There was one thing I noticed.”

  “Something helpful?” Andy demanded.

  “I don’t know.” His pleading eyes sought out Lorna.

  “It’s okay, Harley,” the CPA comforted. “Right now we’re not sure what’s important and what’s not. Anything could be helpful. Tell us what you noticed.”

  “Well, I noticed that Tilda doesn’t actually use a crystal ball.” He waited to see if this seemed very helpful. The facial feedback from the front seat was hard to read. Still, neither woman made any attempt to stop him, which he took as a good sign. “She told me she did use one when she was an amateur, but now that she’s a professional . . .” Again, he scanned for any flicker of support. Lorna touched the tips of her fingers to her lips. His aunt’s cheeks began to glow. He decided this was something they definitely wanted to know. “Now that she’s a professional,” he continued, confidently, “she uses a scrying stone.”

  With that, Harley Davidson nodded, folding his spindly arms with satisfaction and inadvertently flexing two barely visible, yet budding, biceps.

  Chapter 20

  The Lull before the Brainstorm

  “I can’t believe we came all this way, and we’ve got bumpkus,” Andy snorted, trying hard not to look at the pubescent object of her ire, the one she intended to send home to Omaha as soon as possible. Harley wasn’t looking at her, either. He had been counting on the scrying stone to redeem him, and he still couldn’t quite understand why it hadn’t.

  The Three Stooges, as Andy had just renamed the trio, were supposed to be debriefing one another on their mission thus far. Unfortunately, nobody had much to say. They were seated at a picnic table in a tiny public park in Fawnskin, one of the little towns lolling unpretentiously on the shore of Big Bear Lake.

  Although it boasted fewer than 7,000 residents on any given day, Fawnskin had managed to wangle a bit of wreckage from the 9/11 World Trade Center disaster. The small piece of steel girder from one of the Twin Towers now made up a memorial display in the center of the park, which was in the center of town. The half-acre park had been created by the comedian Marty Ingels and his actress wife, Shirley Jones, who were living out their retirement nearby. The two former Hollywood stars had imported the New York City artifact in order to make the park, as they told the press, ‘The Ground Zero of the West Coast.’

  Notwithstanding the glaring lack of both skyscrapers and terrorist attacks in and around the lake, local residents now felt a common and enduring bond with the Big Apple.

  Andy stared mindlessly at the hunk of metal and marveled at the human capacity for making such monumentally stupid gestures—including her own. Why in the hell had she wasted her time coming up to Big Bear Lake?

  “I don’t think you’re giving us enough credit,” Lorna said.

  Andy stirred halfheartedly. “Huh? Not giving who credit?”

  “Us. Our investigative team. After all, we
’ve had some success, Andy. We have established that Tilda is here. That she is living in your old cabin. That she is staying long enough to set up her business. And that she appears to be living alone.”

  “Actually, we don’t know that last fact for certain, Lorna, because somebody didn’t keep his eyes open.” Andy snatched up the blended latte on the table in front of her and took a long, dramatic draw. “Damn it!” she wheezed. “Brain freeze.” She sat paralyzed for a moment, waiting for the pain to pass.

  Harley started to laugh, then cut it short when his aunt glowered at him. He averted his eyes and tried to imagine some other way to redeem himself by being helpful. “Maybe we could wait until Tilda leaves the house and then go in and take a look around,” he suggested.

  Lorna shook her head. “We can’t break into someone’s house. It’s a felony, and I’d probably lose my CPA license.”

  “Oh. Right,” said Harley. He’d finished his latte, but he sucked on the straw anyway, just to have something to do. The cup gave a gut-wrenching rattle, as he vacuumed up the remaining ice chips.

  “Cut that out!” Andy cringed. “I’m trying to think!”

  With that, the conversation stopped cold. Even the slight breeze blowing along the lakeshore took a break. Slowly, the needles of ice in Andy’s head began to dissolve. It turned out to be the lull before the brainstorm.

  “We don’t have to break in,” she realized, excitedly. “I have a key!”

  “What?” Lorna asked.

  “A key. There’s a key. Under the bear-cub carving on the deck. I’ll bet it’s still there.”

  “Well,” Lorna began, weighing the possible jail time, “I guess that wouldn’t be ‘breaking,’ per se, but wouldn’t it still be ‘entering?’”

  “Not if we’re not caught,” Andy said,

  “And if we are?” Lorna wanted to know.

  Andy waved the possibility off and busied herself with a very slow sip of latte, hoping for another brainstorm. When it wasn’t forthcoming, Harley jumped in.

  “Early onset Alzheimer’s,” he volunteered.

  The two women looked at each other and simultaneously decided not to go there. As was his practice, Harley took their silence as a signal to elaborate.