by Paul Neuhaus
“You look like shit,” Mia said.
“Always the diplomat.” Truth be told, Mia wasn’t looking that good herself. She wore a baggy, hippy dress and had shaved one side of her head. At her throat was a giant enamel yin-yang symbol. The younger girl, after a year of strident left-wing campus activism, had dropped out of school and become a Taoist. There wasn’t much money in being a Taoist, and Quinn suspected that was the cause of this meeting. “You still living with David?” she said.
“I am,” Mia replied.
“Tell him I said to drop dead.” David Olkin was the elder Henaghan’s former boss. He’d put her in the no-win, kill-or-be-killed situation with Reginald Verbic. Since then, he’d seen to it Quinn got her salary without having to work, but she still resented him.
“I’ll tell him you send hugs and kisses,” Mia said with a contrarian’s smile. Mia knew now about Quinn’s powers. Between having a sister and a boyfriend who were both Channelers, she’d connected the dots.
Their octogenarian waiter came over, the two women ordered food, and Quinn folded her arms in front of her, preparing herself for the worst.
“So,” Mia said. “Have you talked to Olivia and Tom?” An in-joke. Olivia and Tom were the girls’ parents and Quinn assiduously avoided contact.
The older woman ignored the question. “Look, I know this is rude, but I gotta cut to the chase here. I’m exhausted, so—”
“Your old lady still keeping you up nights?” There was no judgement in the question. Between Mia’s extreme leftward leanings and her newfound go-with-the-flow attitude, she had no problem with lesbian relationships. Olivia and Tom wouldn’t be as amenable, but Quinn was determined they would never know.
The older girl nodded.
“Hey, little wonder, right? I’d have night terrors too if I my own agent tried to slice and dice me. Try and be patient with her.”
Try and be patient with her? That was an oddly empathetic thing for Mia to say. Maybe her friends from the East were sanding away her rough edges. But Quinn was too tired for further inquiry. “What can I help you with, Mia?”
“Aww,” Mia said sweetly. “Usually, you say something like, ‘What do you want, shithead?’”
She wasn’t wrong. The sisters had a long history of mutual dislike. “What do you want, shithead?” Quinn said.
“That’s more like it. I’ll tell you what I want (what I really, really want): I want money. Or, rather, I need money.”
Bingo. Quinn had gotten it on the first guess. Although, to be fair, it hadn’t been a hard test of her faculties. Both Quinn and Mia had survived for years on the good graces of their dead grandfather. Quinn had been careful with her trust fund, while Mia had not. “Not gonna happen,” the older sister said. “What else do you want (do you really, really want)?”
Mia’s shoulders drooped. “Oh, come on. We’re talking about a loan here. I would totally pay you back.”
“You can’t pay me back with what you don’t have. And I can’t give you something I don’t have. Have you not been paying attention? I live with a woman who’s livelihood was taken from her. I lost my job. I now live on granddaddy’s money and an… allowance from my former employer. You were never careful with your money and now you want me to not be careful with mine by giving it to you. Do you see the conundrum there?”
“I know, but—”
“If you’re strapped, why don’t you ask David for cash? At least you’d have the benefit of sleeping with your mark.”
“Ouch. ‘Mark’? So now I’m a common grifter…”
Quinn raised a finger. “I never said you were common.”
Mia sighed. “Thanks. David says he’s not gonna give me money freely unless I marry him. Something about not getting his milk for free.”
Quinn laughed. She disliked the way Olkin had treated her, but it was a funny line. She took a Pilot G2 pen out of her oversized purse and grabbed a paper napkin. On it, she drew a quick sketch and handed it to Mia. The sketch depicted a stick figure—which Quinn had labeled “me”— and a series of arrows pointing at her from above. The arrows were labeled “shit storm”.
“Cute,” Mia said. “You should set up a booth on Venice Beach.”
“I was gonna show the little me hanging onto her money like a pit bull, but that’s way beyond my abilities.”
“Clearly. Do you want some advice?”
The older sister’s eyebrows shot up. Advice? From Mia? This oughta be good. “I insist,” she said.
“First of all, I get it. I withdraw my request for money. Second of all—and I hope this doesn’t sound banal—Most everything is only as hard as you make it.”
Quinn sat there for a moment. Huh. Did Mia, after all these years, finally say something useful? It was hardly profound, but at least it held a grain of truth. “Did Confucius tell you that?” she said.
“No, that’s Confucianism. Taoism is more like—”
Quinn raised up in her seat and scanned for their waiter. “Check please!”
After she left Mia, Quinn walked across the street to Taft’s Books. The facade of the building hadn’t undergone changes (the same memorabilia was still in the window), but big things were afoot indoors. Since Darren’s death and Brad’s acquisition, the store had been closed for renovations. Along with the purchase price, the new proprietor was springing for a modernization. Henaghan had to squeeze past some workmen to get inside. Brad looked up from behind the counter. He was poring over some blueprints. “Hey, Georgia,” he said with a grin.
“Georgia” had been Darren’s misguided nickname for her. She was willing to put up with it from him, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to take it from Brad. “Listen,” she said, leaning in. “You don’t get to call me that. The next time you call me that, I’m gonna pop your head like a zit.”
According to Darren, Brad had some magical abilities of his own so he could sense the magnitude of hers. Her threat, while somewhat tongue-in-cheek, was still credible. “Sorry, Miss Henaghan,” the kid said. “You know, for a second there, you reminded me of Taft.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Henaghan said.
“I would. He was mean to the help, but the man knew his shit.” Brad stepped out from behind the counter and gestured wide to show the changes he’d made. There were now banks of overhead lighting, painted walls and pristine new shelving. “What do you think?” he said, hopeful.
Quinn looked, absorbing all the new detail. “It’s beautiful,” she said, and meant it. Brad grinned. “But—,” she continued. Brad’s grinned disappeared and his arms came down. “Is beautiful what you want?”
The young man cocked his head. “What do you mean?”
Henaghan tried to soften her tone. “How long did Darren own this place? Years and years. Do you think it never occurred to him to renovate? I think he didn’t renovate on purpose. Partly because he was cheap and partly for ambiance.”
“Ambiance?”
“Yeah. French word. Means atmosphere.”
Brad crinkled his brow. “I’m familiar with the term.”
“What do you sell here?”
Brad’s posture and voice changed. “The stuff dreams are made of.”
Quinn rolled her eyes. “Really? You’re gonna go full Bogart on me?”
“Was it good? It was good, wasn’t it?” the kid said. It was true, he did do a more than passable Humphrey Bogart.
“Dandy. But you’re straying. You’re straying, but you’re not wrong. Taft’s sells nostalgia. People who come in here want dust and disorder. It’s part of the mystique. People on the hunt for Old Hollywood don’t want track lighting and lattes.”
“Oh,” said Brad. “I, uh, I wasn’t gonna put in a coffee bar. At least until next year.”
Quinn sighed. Darren Taft had been right about Brad. He was well-meaning, but he wasn’t the brightest of bulbs. Anyway, in keeping the store open, his heart was in the right place. She laid a hand on his shoulder and smiled. “As soon as you have a grand o
pening date, I want you to call me. I’ll bring hookers and doughnuts.”
Brad held out his hand and Quinn shook it. “It’s a deal.” As Henaghan wove back through the workmen, the young man called after her. “You were kidding about the hookers, right?”
“You’re gonna have to wait and find out.” Part of Quinn thought Brad might lie awake nights in anticipation of professional escorts. That was fine with Quinn.
As she walked down Hollywood Boulevard on her way to her car, Quinn’s iPhone rang. She didn’t recognized the number but she picked it up anyway. It was in the 323.
“Quinn Henaghan?” a man’s voice said.
“Yes. Who is this?”
“Look, you probably don’t remember me, but I was really mean to you once.”
Quinn ducked back into a storefront so she could get away from the noise of the cars going by. “You’re gonna have to be way more specific,” she replied.
“It was at the Friar’s Club. I told you to fuck off. And die.”
Henaghan searched her memory. Finally, she said, “Glen? Is this Glen?” Glen was a friend of Taft’s and Taft had sent her his way to gather info on Channeling. Unfortunately, Taft had slept with Glen’s sister and produced a mutated offspring. Glen, understandably, wasn’t in the best of moods that night. “How’s the baby?”
“Yeah… About that. She wants to meet you.”
Quinn had a full-on synaptic misfire. “She wants to meet me? Isn’t she less than a year old?”
“Funny story… No. Given her… specialness, she’s aging at an accelerated rate. She’s old enough to wonder about her birth father. You’re the closest thing Darren had to family at the end, so I thought you might be a touchstone. It’s cool if you’re don’t wanna. I’ll tell Josie you died.”
The redhead slid down the facade of the building she was leaning against. She felt like she’d been hit with a minor brick. “Wow,” she said.
“I know. Right?”
Though she was reeling, the answer was obvious to Quinn. “Yeah, of course. I’d be happy to meet Josie.”
Glen was grateful. They made plans for a meeting. Henaghan hung up and looked at her phone as if it were somehow to blame for her shock.
2
Want
Quinn resisted going home to the clutter and complication. Part of her wanted to drive around for a day of solo adventure. She returned to Gower Street out of a sense of obligation more than anything else. Partly because she knew dodging Molly and everything she implied was childish, and partly because Quinn had something she wanted to try. As she walked through the parking lot of her apartment complex, she saw movers and a moving van. Someone had rented Annabelle Grindle’s apartment and that felt to Quinn like a sad, unsatisfying resolution. Grindle had been Henaghan’s downstairs neighbor for years before Barry Faber murdered her. Quinn often found herself missing the crusty old woman. As she walked by, one of the movers said “hi” and the redhead returned the greeting with a scowl.
When Henaghan walked through her door, she found Molly unshowered and still in her long nightshirt. On the coffee table in front of her was a plate of half-eaten eggs. Blank looked up, returning from a place of deep thought. She blinked when she saw Quinn. “Oh, good,” she said.
“‘Oh, good?’ That’s the nicest greeting I’ve gotten all day. I think.”
“No, I mean, ‘Oh, good. I want to talk to you’,” Molly’s flat tone indicated nothing about whatever the forthcoming conversation would contain. But Henaghan could guess.
Quinn kicked off her shoes by the door and came over to sit with Molly on Molly’s couch. She sketched out her call from Glen, young Josie’s uncle. She wasn’t at all surprised when Molly agreed immediately that they should meet the girl. That out of the way, she turned her attention toward whatever was bothering Blank. “Okay. Wha’s up?” she said.
Molly opened her mouth to speak but Annabelle the bird cut her off with a stream of seemingly-angry tweets. “Shut up, Annabelle!” Quinn said, and the bird did as it was told.
Blank turned toward the younger woman, raised her knees and wrapped her arms around them. “I think I might be a little empathetic,” she said. “Not in a casual way, but more in a Star Trek-y kinda way.” The brunette wasn’t wrong. She was unusually good at reading people. “Lately, you’ve been—” Molly started then stopped, then started again with a different tack. “Like now. When you came in, I somehow knew what you’d been thinking. You were… ambivalent about coming home. I get that. You were a loner before you met me. Hell, you were practically a hermit. You’re not used to… all this.” With that, she indicated both all the extra stuff in the apartment and herself. “Maybe there’s an easy solution. I could say that I understand if you need to isolate sometimes—and, for the record, I’d mean it. Despite me being the self-appointed June Cleaver in this relationship, I’m not trying to put any constraints on you. You believe that, right?”
Quinn nodded. She did believe it.
“I mean, I’m not the ‘I can change him’ type. If I’m in a relationship with someone, I’m there for them—warts and horrid odors included.”
Quinn smiled. “This is about my feet, isn’t it?”
Molly shook her head. “It’s not. Although your feet can be fucking nasty.”
“I know, I know,” Henaghan agreed.
“Let’s leave your pretty little, but very stinky, feet out of this for now. I’m talking about whether you actually want to do this. I know I’m the first woman you’ve ever been with. I also know this isn’t the life you had planned. You wanted a husband, a kid, the whole nine yards. Obviously, if that’s what you need, I can’t give it to you. I’d get out of your way, but I wouldn’t be happy about it. I mean I really wouldn’t be happy about it.” Blank was starting to cry. Silently. “I love you, Quinn. And I’m not just saying that because you saved my life.”
Henaghan’s voice became barely audible. “I know you’re not.”
“I didn’t mean to lay this on you,” Molly said, picking up her yolk-stained paper napkin and using it to wipe her eyes. “I know this is a fucking crazy time for you. You’ve got an old lady you don’t necessarily want, you had to give up your whole lifestyle, and you’re the Sorcerer Supreme of Hollywood. It’s a lot to take in.”
Quinn couldn’t help laughing. Laughing hard, actually. She clutched her sides and writhed against the armrest of the couch. “Did you just make a Doctor Strange reference to me?”
Molly was confused. “I… guess. I mean not on purpose.” Unlike Henaghan, the brunette wasn’t at all a follower of geek culture. Still, she couldn’t help but pick up some of Quinn’s pop art obsession by osmosis. She dropped her arms and slid over to Henaghan. Despite being taller and fuller-figured, it was generally Blank who curled up in Quinn’s arms rather than the other way around. Quinn accepted her. The older woman sighed and the sound was tinged with the after effects of her cry. “I’m not asking you to give me an answer. I’m not even asking you to comment. I wanted you to know that I’m aware. I’m aware, and whatever you decide—whether I like it or not—will be the right decision for both of us. As long as you’re honest.”
Henaghan tightened her grip on Molly’s shoulders. “Jesus Christ,” she said.
“‘Jesus Christ’? What does that mean?”
“It means you could teach Mia a thing or two about Taoism. Not to mention empathy.” Quinn relaxed her upper body and surrendered herself to the war going on inside her head. The war between her old life and her new one.
She was at least healthy enough to know she was going to have to let the two sides fight it out.
Not long after their talk, Molly showered, dressed and ran off to do grocery shopping. Not because they needed groceries particularly but because she sensed Quinn could use a little alone time. Henaghan had to give it to her, whatever stresses and strains Blank represented, they were external to the woman herself. Oddly, whenever she thought about Future Quinn, she imagined that her husband would be kind of
an asshole (after all, weren’t most husbands assholes?). Molly certainly wasn’t that. Apart from her lingering post-traumatic stress syndrome, the older woman was the most grounded and reasonable person Quinn knew. Quinn sometimes resented her for being so together (which was stupid, but it was a part of her own inherent unreasonableness). Theoretically, given her strange abilities, she could venture forward in time and check her own progress, but she knew it’d be a bullshit exercise. Darren Taft made it clear that, anything a Channeler might see in a vision or a glimpse of a different time should be taken with a whole salt mine. Every decision point in life caused a spiderweb of cracks in the fabric of reality. Which thing would a person choose in any given situation? The answer was simple: all of them—and each of those choices created a new space and time. If Quinn were to see herself somewhere in the future with her asshole husband and her bratty child, which Quinn would she be seeing? Not necessarily the Quinn she was. Taft’s advice was for her to put her head down and focus on the here and now. Your own reality is the only one that matters, at least in terms of living an authentic life.
Henaghan sat on her bed in an approximation of the lotus position, her hands on her knees. She closed her eyes and rose two feet above the mattress. In a moment, she was with him.
Darren Taft cried out. He was in his own home, scratching his balls through his sweatpants when Quinn appeared. He dropped his hand from his crotch and crossed his legs. “Georgia! What the fuck?”
“When is this?” Henaghan said.
“When is what? What’re you—?”
“You know I’m not really here, right?”
Taft grinned. “Of course I know you’re not really here. I mean I wish for pretty redheads all the time and one has yet to appear. Until now. And it’s a thought projection through space and time. Darren Taft loses again.”
“Give me an idea where I’m at,” Quinn said, looking around Darren’s filthy apartment for evidence of the date (and finding none).