“I made us a Bundt cake. Dottie’s old recipe, so I tried it. It came out! You like sour cream icing? I got this special tea to go with it. If it’s nice, we can sit out on the balcony and look at the blue-hairs. So what time’s good? Don’t forget your crystal ball. Four?”
Molly made two fast decisions. “Four is perfect, and Charlie?”
“Yeah?”
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you. About my phone rates.”
“Uh-oh. Is this bad news? Because to tell you the truth, there’s something I’m supposed to tell you, too.”
“What a coincidence. I’ll go first. I have a new rate, a special fee for special customers.”
“How much?”
“Nothing. It’s free.”
When he could speak, Charlie said, “Get outta town!”
“What I do is, I give you my regular phone number, not the 900 one, and you call me at certain times we agree on.”
“I love this deal.”
“And, of course, you never abuse it.”
“Never!”
“No, I know.”
“Right. But how do you know?”
“Oh, Charlie. I’m psychic.”
FIVE
Not very psychic, though. Otherwise, she’d have realized Oliver Worth was a big fat liar.
Charlie wasn’t poor at all! He lived on the third floor of a new, attractive high-rise overlooking the seventh hole green and a lake at The Lakes at Cartamack (or “Heart Attack,” as he insisted on calling it). A uniformed guard in a gatehouse consulted a list before letting Molly drive in, and the green awning in front of Charlie’s building reminded her of a fancy hotel’s. Limited savings and limited Social Security, her foot.
“More cake? More tea?” Charlie pushed the plate and the teapot toward her, and she took some more of both to please him, refilling his cup while she was at it. It wasn’t only his apartment; Charlie didn’t look like what she’d been expecting either. She’d thought he’d be small, a little sprite of a guy, probably bald, with a perpetual sideways smirk to go with his sense of humor. But he was handsome! Not tall, but upright and wiry, with silver hair still thick and wavy, and eyes as blue as his natty cardigan sweater. He even smelled good, and Molly was touched to think he’d not only cooked and cleaned but also dressed up for her.
She’d dressed up for him, in a way. Red skirt, frilly, low-cut blouse, and big hoop earrings; and she’d let her hair, unruly at the best of times, go completely wild. Going for the Gypsy look, to make him laugh. It worked: When he’d opened the door and seen her, he’d guffawed.
“You know what? I thought you’d be older,” he confided, devouring a cream-filled cookie in one bite. “Not as old as me, but getting up there.”
“How come?”
“The way you talk. You sound wise.”
“That’s just the accent.”
“Also, I thought you’d be sorta fat, frankly.”
“Fat!”
“Not sure why. And not fat, exactly. You know what zaftig means?”
Molly glanced down at her medium-sized chest. “But instead—”
“You’re gorgeous! Also, I never thought for two seconds you’d have red hair and be Irish.”
“Well, I never thought you’d look like Cary Grant, so there you go.”
He made scoffing sounds and hid half his face behind his napkin, but she could see his cheeks turn pink. He was delighted. “Oliver’s the good-looking one in the family. Speaking of, don’t ever tell him we did this, he’d have a cow.”
“Why would I ever tell Oliver anything?” She hadn’t even told Charlie about Oliver’s phone call, afraid it might embarrass him. Or get Oliver in trouble for going behind Charlie’s back. Not that she cared.
“I know, I’m just saying. This here is private. Just us.”
“Of course.”
“Okay, then. Shall we get this show on the road?” He got up and went into the living room. “This a good place?” He indicated the coffee table. “You on one side, me on the other, ball in the middle. Holy Christ, is that it?”
She’d brought it in the same bowling bag Aunt Kit had shipped it to her in, and she liked to imagine her aunt schlepping the bag to bridge and mah-jongg parties or, better yet, bowling alleys, then whipping the ball out to amaze her friends. “It’s pretty, isn’t it? Like a giant glass paperweight.”
“Giant glass paperweight,” Charlie agreed, taking his seat, pushing up his sleeves. “So how much practice have you had on this thing?”
“Um, some. Not that much. Charlie?”
“Yeah?”
“Nothing, let’s get started.”
Which would be kinder to him, to pretend she was psychic or confess that she wasn’t? She could never decide, so she just kept going along. Like a doctor, hoping to do no harm.
“Okay, now.” She cleared her throat. “As I said, we have to be partners in this. I need your mental power and energy at least as much as mine, or probably nothing will happen. It helps if we hold hands.” They reached across the table and clasped hands; his were dry and cool and scratchy. “Close your eyes. Concentrate.”
“What am I concentrating on?”
“Dottie. Right? You said you—”
“Right, right. I want to contact her.” He shut his eyes tight and screwed up his face.
Molly followed suit, then realized she had nothing to concentrate on. “A picture, Charlie, I need a photo or something.”
“Gotcha.” He disappeared, and came back with a goldframed photograph, eight by ten, of himself and Dottie about twenty years ago, posing on the gangplank of an ocean liner. “On our way to Europe. Isn’t she a beaut?”
She assumed he meant his wife, not the ship, and agreed. “Both of you, so handsome. And she looks like she adores you.” Dottie was tiny, birdlike, with pixie-cut hair tinted strawberry blonde. They were holding hands, and she had her cheek on Charlie’s arm, grinning up at him with a kind of mischievous trust. Molly envied them.
She and Charlie went back to holding hands and concentrating. She thought of all he’d told her about Dottie, how funny she was—not always intentionally—and how sweet. Her aversion to cats; her lifelong hypochondria. How much she loved music. The time she missed the brake and drove their brand-new Chevy through the back of the garage. The way she could put people at ease. How, on her deathbed, she told him her only regret in life was never having gone to college—complete news to Charlie. Mostly Molly concentrated on the photograph: that expression on Dottie’s face, gazing up at her sharp-dressed husband, of irreverent, clear-eyed devotion.
“She misses you.” Molly felt sure of that.
Charlie’s hands tightened on hers. “You can see her?”
“She misses you, but she’s all right. She wants you to know that.” Molly shifted her attention from the photo to the crystal ball. The dense glass had textures, reflections, opacities; it was almost always possible to make out something in its shifting surfaces. A face—sure, she might see one. Or not. But maybe. And whether or not it was Dottie’s face, and whether or not she was trying to tell Charlie she missed him—it did no harm to say so.
“Tell her—” Charlie’s eyes moistened. “Tell her I’m all right.”
“You can tell her.”
He swallowed. Mouthed the words. “Tell her—I’ll tell her—I’m sorry for not being a better husband.”
“She disagrees. She thinks you were . . .” Molly was going to say “great,” but changed it to “swell.” Just a feeling.
“Aw. Tell her I’m sorry about Cancún.”
“She forgives you.”
“Some vacation. All we did was fight.”
“Half of it was her fault.”
“She said that? Tell her I’m sorry for—”
“Wait, Charlie. She’s saying . . .”
“What?”
“She says quit with the apologizing. She can’t even remember that stuff. A couple of bad notes, she says, in a . . . in a long, beautif
ul symphony.”
Charlie’s face looked young, almost; transformed. It erased any guilt Molly might have felt for telling him things he wanted to hear. “Tell her I love her,” he said softly.
“She knows. Now she’s saying . . . to live your life. Say yes more.”
“Say yes more,” Charlie repeated thoughtfully.
Molly released his hands and leaned in, peering more closely into the ball. If she’d seen anything before, it was beginning to fade. “I think that’s it, Charlie. No . . . wait. She’s saying something. . . .”
“What? What?”
Now this was weird. “I think she said somebody’s thinking about you. Right now.”
“Who? Somebody, who? Is it Oliver?”
So strange—the form, the essence of Dottie, if there was such a thing, the smoky outline that might be a face, who knew, but in any case the thing Molly had been staring at so hard—it changed. She couldn’t have said how. But “Dottie” departed and something, or someone, replaced her. Maybe.
“Not Oliver. It’s a woman.”
Charlie sat back. “A woman. Is thinking about me?” He blinked repeatedly. “Really?”
“And she’s nearby. Relatively. She’s not, you know . . .” Dead.
“Well, who the hell is she?”
“I don’t know, I can’t see. She’s . . . she’s got gray hair. I think.” She looked up helplessly. “Oh, Charlie, it’s gone, there’s nothing. I’m sorry. I think she had gray hair.”
“Christ, Molly, everybody around here has gray hair.” He stood up, looking pleased, annoyed, agitated. “ ’Scuse me, I gotta use the bathroom.”
What was that? Molly fell back against her chair. She was feeling a little dizzy. “What just happened?” she asked out loud. Had she really seen a gray-haired woman in a crystal ball? Dottie she’d been making up—she was pretty sure—but that second woman had seemed so real. Aunt Kit was always telling her to be patient, if she wasn’t psychic yet she soon would be, McDougals were late bloomers, the gift hadn’t come to Kit herself till she was almost forty—to all of which Molly would say “mm hm” and privately roll her eyes. I’m just sensitive, she’d think; nothing magical about it. Well, she’d better be sensitive: She was studying for what she hoped would be a long, serious career in counseling young people. If she didn’t have a little natural intuition, she might as well pack it in.
Somebody knocked at the door. Molly stood up, uncertain. “Charlie?”
“What?” from the bathroom.
“Somebody’s at the door.”
“Could you get it? I’m . . .” Inaudible; something about “goddamn prostate.”
She went to the door and opened it.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
After that, she couldn’t think of anything to say. Neither could he—the man on the other side of the threshold. She registered tallness, good health, dark hair. Intense blue eyes and a serious mouth. A mouth that slowly, slowly began to smile. Molly stopped breathing. It was like watching the gradual revelation of a gift she’d wanted all her life, inside the most beautifully wrapped box. Oh, it’s you , a voice—her own voice—said from a deep place inside. Well, finally.
“Um,” she got out. So much easier to smile back at him than to put words together. Why be coherent when you could just stare? She felt a flooding self-consciousness, and at the same time, extreme excitement. “Have you come to see Charlie?” she asked eventually.
“I have,” he said, as if just remembering. “Hello.”
“Hello.”
“I’m Oliver.” He put out his hand—the tenderest gesture. She almost took it, she was so looking forward to touching him, when she heard what he’d said.
“You are? You’re Oliver?” She backed up, backed away. “Oh. Come in. Hi. I’m, um . . .” She thought she’d been inarticulate before. “Charlie’s just, um . . .”
Coming out of the bathroom, looking distracted. When he saw his grandson, he stopped dead, virtually froze where he stood. Molly had never seen such a vivid illustration of guilt. “Ha!” he exclaimed; a greeting. “What are you doing here?”
Oliver said something about taxes, a form to sign. He looked at Molly. He looked at Charlie.
“Did you meet?” Charlie said, moving again. “This is, this is ...”
Molly . said, “I’m, um, I’m . . .”
“Crystal,” Charlie said. “This is Crystal.”
“With a K,” Molly decided for some reason.
“Oh,” Charlie said, surprised. Then he said, “Smith,” at the same moment she said, “Jones.”
“Krystal Smith-Jones,” they announced in unison.
After that, it got worse.
“Krystal’s a Jehovah’s Witness.”
“No, I’m not! Oh, Charlie. He’s such a kidder.” Just then she remembered the crystal ball, in plain sight on the coffee table. She sidled around Charlie, pretended to look for something in her purse, which lay on the sofa.
“Yeah, just kidding,” Charlie said, moving sideways to put himself between her and Oliver. “She sells time shares.”
“Ha-ha! No, I don’t.” She got the crystal ball in the bowling bag and zipped it up so fast, she broke a nail. If Charlie had been the picture of guilt, the zzzzzzt of the bag closing was the sound of it. But at least it gave her an idea. “I’m a therapist,” she turned around to say. “Physical. Physical therapist. Charlie didn’t want you to know, Mr. Worth, but he . . .” She blanked.
“I have . . .” Charlie prodded.
“He has . . .”
By now Oliver had folded his arms. She barely recognized him. All the warmth was gone, along with that strange, uncanny look of—recognition. Nothing in his face now but growing consternation. “Charlie has what? I wonder,” he said coolly.
“He has a strain in the C7 lumbar vertebra.”
“The old C7,” Charlie said mournfully, rubbing the back of his neck.
Time to go, Molly decided.
“Nice meeting you,” she told Oliver, who didn’t answer. So she didn’t hold out her hand to shake, but she thought of how much she’d wanted to—when? Three minutes ago? A lifetime.
Charlie followed her to the door. “Thanks for the treatment. That’s quite a . . . device,” he said, indicating the bowling bag she was trying to hide under her arm. “I feel a lot better, Krystal. Not cured, though—probably need at least one more adjustment. There’s a thing here next Saturday—maybe you’d like to come?”
“A thing,” she repeated. Oliver, who was leaning against the wall beside a shelf full of horse statues, a collection of some sort, didn’t even pretend not to listen.
“Yeah, Heart Attack Day or some damn thing. Picnic, entertainment. Last year they had a ukulele quartet, nobody in it under eighty. You wanna come?”
“Oh, gosh, I don’t think I . . .” Moving to put himself between her and Oliver, Charlie made an urgent face by bulging his eyes and opening his mouth so wide she could see his fillings. “Ahhh,” she changed her answer, “let me check my calendar. I’ll get back to you.”
“Sounds like fun. Can I come, too?”
Charlie looked surprised, but not nearly as confounded by this from Oliver—whose innocent-looking interest had to be manufactured—as Molly thought he should. “Sure,” Charlie said, “the more the merrier. So I’ll call you,” he turned back to Molly to say, raising and lowering his eyebrows meaningfully. But what was the meaning? She felt confused, embarrassed, and depressed.
“Well, ’bye,” she said, braving a last glance at Oliver. She took in details she’d missed before, the way his straight shoulders filled out the jacket of his dark suit, his sexy five-o’clock shadow. Tall men were her weakness.
That’s all it was, she assured herself on the way down the hall to the elevator. Physical attraction, and already she was over it. Good thing she hadn’t met her soul mate or anything. Because Oliver Worth couldn’t stand her.
SIX
“Please enter your credit card numb
er now.”
Oliver obeyed, trying not to think too much about what he was doing. Which wasn’t like him. But if he thought about it, he’d hang up, turn off the TV—muted on The Virginian, the 1929 version with Gary Cooper—and try to get some work done. Instead he crossed his bare feet on top of the leather ottoman that matched his Eames chair and waited for the voice.
“Hello. This is Madame Romanescu.”
“Hey,” he said in a dusty Western drawl he hadn’t planned on using—it just came out. “How’re you this pretty evenin’, ma’am?” On the TV screen, The Virginian was riding the range with Shorty, one of his scruffy ranch hands. “Name’s Shorty,” Oliver said, unimaginatively. “Just thought I’d call up and say how-do.”
Madame Romanescu had a friendly smile in her voice when she said, “Hello, Shorty. I am so glad you called. How are you?”
“I’m pretty peaceful. Don’t know what it’s like where you are, but out here, seems like there’s more stars than sky.”
“It sounds beautiful. You are somewhere out West, I’m thinking.”
“Wyoming, ma’am, just outside Medicine Bend. How ’bout you? If you don’t mind me inquirin’,” he added, recalling that she didn’t like to talk about her personal life.
She hesitated before saying, “New Jersey. Just outside Hoboken.”
Now, that had to be true. What kind of psychic, especially one with a Gypsy accent like hers, would say she came from Hoboken unless she did? “Well, I’m damned,” Oliver said. “What’s it like in Hoboken tonight?”
“Oh . . .” Her voice went away, as if she were craning her neck, looking out a window or a door. “I can’t see any stars. The lights from the city, they turn the sky orange.”
Lights from New York, she must mean. “Now, that’s a shame.”
“What is it like where you are?”
“Hot, ma’am. Hotter’n a whorehouse on nickel night.”
“And what do you do out there in Wyoming, Shorty?”
He gave a low, lazy laugh. A Gary Cooper laugh. “Hey now, you’re the psychic, ma’am, you tell me.”
“Mmm . . . I’m thinking you work outdoors quite a lot.”
The Unquiet Page 20