The Perfect Fraud

by Ellen LaCorte

  I sit between Cal’s knees, lean back, and he wraps his arms around me.

  “Tell me your theory, oh wise one,” I say.

  He points to a plane that’s climbing, its silver nose piercing a sky that’s gradually transitioned from a dusty blue to muted pinks and now is in a full bloom of fiery orange as if the sun is waging its last battle before giving up the day.

  “Okay, here’s what I’m thinking. Your father just died; you had an emotional breakthrough with your mom; you came home to me, thinking we’re over, and we had this incredible open-hearted conversation—”

  “And?”

  “Stay with me here, Oz. When someone is . . . uh . . . closed off, not really able to let their emotions out—”

  “Me?” I squirm in his arms and turn to face him. This is a bit dangerous because if I move the wrong way, I’ll fall off the ledge and pull him with me.

  Cal kisses me and says, “I’m not criticizing, but for the sake of my assessment of your current situation, can we agree that prior to this, you were pretty protective of your feelings?”

  I turn back and watch as the sun glides under the horizon.

  “Fine,” I say, knowing that, of course, he’s right.

  “Good. So we can agree you’ve had a lot of emotional upheaval recently, and possibly, one of the outcomes might be that you’ve become more in touch with what’s going on inside you emotionally . . .”

  “Okay, probably true. Do go on.”

  “Sometimes what happens when a person decides to or has to open up, to become really aware of what they’re feeling and face those emotions and, even more important, start to truly experience those emotions, even and especially the ones that are most painful—this can lead to unexpected outcomes.”

  “‘Unexpected outcomes’?”

  He stands and takes my hand to help me up. We crawl carefully back to the mesa top. Everyone else has left except for the guy doing yoga. He’s wisely put on his shirt since once the sun set, the temperature must have dropped ten degrees. He bows to us, says “Namaste,” rolls his mat, and starts the trek down. We wave goodbye.

  “Tell me about these unexpected outcomes,” I say.

  Cal takes off his sweatshirt, wraps it around me, and begins to lead us down the trail. There’s a little ambient light from the airport but not enough to help us easily navigate. It’s a much slower trip down.

  “What I think happened today was you were much more tuned into the emotional needs of others because you’ve become more open to your own emotions and were finally receptive enough to really hear your clients.”

  I grab the back of his T-shirt and pull him to a stop.

  “What the hell are you saying?”

  I can barely see his face in the dark.

  “What I mean is that sometimes when people shut off parts of themselves because those parts are too painful, then it’s hard for them to open up other parts of themselves. Emotions are difficult to compartmentalize. What I’m saying, I guess, is that once those gates are open, it’s almost impossible to close them again.”

  We reach the trailhead and walk toward the car. What he’s saying is very close to what Aunt Frannie said to me on the beach. My mind is churning, and I use whatever remaining brain cells I have to respond.

  “You’re saying because I’m more open emotionally now, essentially, I’m open to everything? That today wasn’t an exhibition of my psychic talents? That all I did today was be an extra-good listener and that made my responses more on target than usual?”

  “Yup, that’s pretty much it.”

  I know in some respects he’s not wrong. I have been more emotional lately. The other night, while we were watching a dog food commercial, I cried when the kid hugged his puppy. But Cal’s explanation doesn’t completely square with my experiences today. What about those things I could see and tell from the cards or from, I guess, the universe that were so specific, things I couldn’t have gotten from a client by only close listening and guessing?

  “Bullshit. I’m not buying it. Did you learn all this from just registering for your one psych class?” I ask, sliding into the front seat.

  “Hey, no reason to get belligerent with me,” he says as he turns the ignition. “And it was actually in an article in a women’s magazine I was reading while I was waiting for the guy to cut my hair a couple of days ago.”

  Although I try not to, I laugh and say, “Very fine research, Professor.”

  “I thought so.”

  Serious again, I say, “Cal, it wasn’t like that. I did see and hear and feel things I couldn’t have known otherwise.”

  “Other than from the great beyond, you mean?” he asks, and cocks an eyebrow.

  “Listen, you obviously think I’m still a fraud, so we’re done talking,” I say, jumping out of the car before he barely comes to a stop in our driveway. I slam the passenger door.

  He runs after me, takes my arm, and turns me around to face him.

  “Ozzie, can’t you even consider that maybe you weren’t so much psychic today as you just had an overabundance of stray emotions you projected onto others and . . . well, maybe you returned to work before you should have?”

  He tries to hug me, but I yank my arm away.

  “I’m telling you the visions, or whatever I had this afternoon, were one hundred percent the real deal. And I need to figure out how to handle this, with or without your help.”

  I’m angry with Cal, but I don’t have time or energy to keep trying to convince him that what happened actually did happen. The bigger immediate problem is what to do about it. All those images coming at me—it was overwhelming and frightening.

  I go inside, and he follows me, many paces behind. As I bend down to untie my shoes, I know exactly what I need to do.

  My mom answers on the third ring. In the background, I can hear the scrape of a pestle on mortar, a sound that transports me immediately back to when I used to help in the shop grinding herbs for teas and medicines.

  “Claire, I’m so glad you called. How are you, honey?”

  “Good. Good. Everything’s fine. Hey, remember you mentioned you were going to visit? When would be a good time for you to do that, do you think?” I can’t imagine having the conversation I need to have with her over the phone. Definitely has to be face-to-face.

  “What’s wrong? You sound funny. Has anything happened?”

  Obviously, I didn’t do such a great job trying to sound like I was only asking a casual question about her potential travel plans. Cal was right about one thing. These stupid emotions keep creeping through when I least want them.

  I cough and try to recover.

  “Nope, everything’s great. We talked about you seeing this part of the country and I just thought we should get going on that.”

  “Claire, I would love to. I know it’s only been a day or so but I miss you already.”

  “So you’ll come?”

  “I think I can get Lisa—you know, that naturalist I met at the conference last year—to cover the shop while I’m gone. She can also water the gardens and watch over the house, Sammie, and everything.”

  “Great. Let me know your flight information.”

  32

  Rena

  It’s not as hard as people think, putting in an NG feeding tube. Nursing students are taught how to do this really early on in their classes.

  The nasogastric tube is a long, narrow tube that’s soft and bendable. It goes through the nose and into the stomach. All you need is a feeding tube, a bag to attach to the tube, and an IV pole. Of course, I don’t have an IV pole, but I can usually rig something up so the bag hangs high enough.

  You get your patient to sit up with a pillow behind the head and shoulders. Coil the end of the tube around your index finger so it has a flexible curve—makes it go in a whole lot easier. Coat the end with lubricant, but don’t use petroleum jelly. I forget why, but I remember some instructor telling us over and over not to use that. Instead, I have some kind of water
-soluble shit that works just fine.

  With the curve pointing down, insert the tube along the floor of the nostril until you can feel some resistance. That’s how you know you’re in the stomach.

  Most patients will gag or choke a little, but you can usually fix that by changing the position of their head or neck. I can honestly say I’ve done a bunch of these and never had to call a supervisor or doctor to help me because I couldn’t get it in right. I was successful 100 percent of the time.

  Of course, Stephanie hardly ever gags or even coughs anymore, but she squirms a lot. It’s not real comfortable getting this procedure.

  She’s curled up way in the back of the hall closet, behind the vacuum cleaner and a mop. I can hardly see her in the dark, but I can hear her sniffling.

  “Stephanie, come out here. I don’t know what the hell else that woman gave you but I need to take care of this. Get your butt out here now.”

  “No, no, Mama,” she whines and scoots away from the tips of my fingers.

  “Dammit, Stephanie, I don’t have time for this bullshit.”

  “Mommy, I’m fine. Graciella gave me food at her house.”

  “Oh, so now you’re on a first-name basis with her? You know what she gave you, Stephanie? She gave you poison. That’s what it is. Like the powder we put in the basement to kill the mice that time. When we checked to see if it worked, do you remember what they looked like? Yeah, dead, with their feet in the air and all shriveled up, with that white foam coming out of their mouths. Pretty horrible, right? Well, that’s exactly what bologna is, Stephanie. Poison. Come out right now!”

  I’m afraid Mrs. Bitch Next Door will hear the screaming, so I tell Stephanie she can watch cartoons. This is something I hardly ever let her do, since I can’t stand the noise and she sees so much of that crap with her new bestie. But the bribe works. She stops crying and starts to slowly come out of the closet. When she’s close enough to me, I grab her hand and then carry her to the couch. Her arms and legs are kicking all over the place, but I am finally able to insert the tube.

  STEPHANIE’S BATTLE BLOG

  Posted on October 10 by Stephanie’s Mommy

  As you can see, my little pumpkin is hooked up to her feeding tube—again. (see pictures). I really thought this part of our battle was over at last. I was hoping and praying the doctor out here would know what to do. No such luck. She said it could still be Fabry disease and she’s waiting for the genetic test to come back. I know it’s bad to think this way but I’ll be so pissed off at Gary if he gave something to Steph.

  And now this doctor even refuses to do more tests. I left her a message and said either give Stephanie a PET scan or I will go to the AMA. And then the crazy neighbor who’s been watching Steph gave her bolony today. BOLONY! No wonder Steph’s stomach is such a mess now. She threw up everywhere when we got home. I had to put in the feeding tube. I didn’t have a choice. Baby’s got to get some nutrients in her some way.

  One good thing did happen today, I met a really hot guy at work.

  KnitWit: Oh, Rena, how horrible for you and Steph. What can I do? Do you want me to come out there and help? Please let me know and I’ll be on the next plane. I hate to make things even worse, but both Gary and that guy from St. Theresa’s Hospital came to see me this week, asking where they could find you. All I could say was Arizona—it was the honest response. PM me your address. Please. Also, I tried calling you, but there was still no answer and no voice mail set up. Are you having phone problems again? Gary said he tried too but same deal. You need to contact him (and me!) right away and let us know how you and Steph are doing. PLEASE!!!

  33

  Claire

  The following Tuesday morning, Cal and I make the drive to Phoenix to pick Mom up at the airport. I’m still upset with him for not believing me about my rediscovered psychic skills, but I make the decision to put my anger aside, at least for the week she’s visiting.

  It’s mid-October, officially fall, and even after living in Arizona and in California for so many years, I’m still surprised and irritated that the temperatures are in the high eighties. I guess I’m an East Coast girl to my core, because I miss that first snap of cold in the air and the crunching of red leaves under my feet. At least Sedona is about ten degrees cooler than Phoenix, so it might not be such a big shock for her.

  Cal leaves me at the curb and parks the car in the temporary lot while I go to baggage claim. I spot her immediately: a tall, slim woman with hair the color of orange sherbet. She’s graceful even as she reaches over to sling a bulging suitcase from the spinning carousel, and when she turns, though I’m yards away, her green eyes that are identical to mine pierce through the distance as she spots me. She rushes over and squashes me in a giant hug.

  “Hi, sweetie. You look so beautiful. Where’s Cal?” Mom asks.

  “He’s parking the car. I’m really glad you’re here.” I turn away but not before she catches my eyes brimming with tears.

  “Honey? Are you crying? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I’m just happy to see you.” I’m not about to start pouring out my secrets in the middle of baggage claim.

  Even though the store was still busy, Mindi very generously gave me the week off to spend time with Mom. I think she figured the additional time away would be good for me.

  But I was anticipating big-time retribution the week I returned in the form of an extra-heavy client load. Part of the reason for this is that in the week before my mother arrived, I became a very hot commodity. I knew there were clients booked for my week out who would reschedule for the following week because they only wanted to be seen by me. The phone in the store had been ringing constantly with people begging to get squeezed in whenever my schedule would allow. Mindi finally ended up taking on Helene, a local psychic who would fill in during my time away and see clients who weren’t determined to sit only with me.

  News of my astoundingly accurate readings had seemed to travel throughout Sedona within an hour, which only confirmed for me how desperate people are to believe in psychics.

  Not only did my on-target readings continue with clients who came to me in the store, but I also started to be bombarded with information when I was out. During one trip to the grocery store, when I was trying to find an avocado that wasn’t hard enough to be considered a lethal weapon, I felt a strange buzzing pressure behind my eyes. For a moment, there was a haze across my vision, almost like a thick fog in front of my face. I actually raised my hand to sweep it away, but there was nothing physically there. When it passed and I could see again, I noticed a woman one bin over picking through a pile of sweet potatoes. It was almost as if a magnet were pulling me toward her. I tried to ignore the sensation and quickly tossed two rock-hard avocados in my basket and turned the cart away from her and toward the dairy section for some cheddar cheese. Which would have been a good plan had a child at that moment not jumped in front of my cart, causing me to squeal to a stop. The sweet potato woman steered her cart parallel to mine.

  “John Robert, why are you running through the store? Haven’t we talked about this a million times?” She takes the boy’s hand and secures it to the top of her cart, wrapping his fingers around the handle.

  “I’m so sorry. Why is it they have so much energy at the exact same time of the day we have none?” she asked, chuckling.

  “You need to have his appendix checked.” I looked around after the sentence blurted out of my mouth, as if there were a ventriloquist nearby who actually said the words while I’d only mouthed them.

  “What? What did you say?” the woman stuttered.

  “I’m sorry, never mind. I guess I was just thinking out loud about other things. You know, like you said, tired and all that.” I started to move my cart away, but she took hold of the side.

  “No, I heard you. I heard what you said. You said I needed to have his appendix checked out. How do you know that? JR’s had a bad tummyache for most of today. I kept him out of school, and he seemed better th
is afternoon, so I thought I’d do some shopping. It was a sharp pain in his belly and it came and went throughout the morning. Then, he said that he felt like he could throw up, but he took his nap and woke up better.” She caressed the top of her son’s head, smoothing down a cowlick that stood upright at his forehead. He was freckle-nosed and looked like the kind of kid who would stick a lizard down the shirt of the girl who sat in front of him in homeroom. He grinned up at me, and that was it. I had to tell her what I saw.

  “This is going to sound bizarre. I don’t even understand it myself . . . but I see things, like visions.”

  She pulled JR closer to her and backed her cart up several feet.

  “I understand. I don’t blame you, but I need to let you know what I saw because I’m worried about your son.”

  She swiveled her head back and forth, checking around her, as if wondering whether this was a spoof and she was actually being filmed for some reality show. When no one with a video camera leaped out from behind the display of lettuces, she leaned toward me and asked softly, “What did you see?”

  Keeping my voice equally low, I whispered, “I saw a dark, black space, but then something red inside it exploded open, almost like a tomato being squashed.”

  Standing upright, she said in a normal voice, “A tomato. A squashed tomato.”

  “Yeah,” I said, realizing how utterly ridiculous this must sound to a mother who simply wanted to buy some sweet potatoes.

  “Why on earth would that make you think I need to have his appendix checked? Do you always stop people in the grocery store to tell them horrible things? I bet this is some kind of scam, right? You get people all upset and then tell them you can fix them with a witchy-witchy product they can only buy from you. You are a terrible person.” Her voice was rising in volume with every insult, and people were starting to stare and congregate in a circle around us.