“You spoke from the heart,” the woman said, “and therefore you are to be commended.”
Julia turned to gaze at her. She looked like one of those middle-aged women who manage to be both shabby and solidly respectable at the same time. Stern and thrifty householders, clippers of coupons, wielders of bleach bottles, believers in the medicinal properties of petroleum jelly. She had a broad, pleasant face and eyeglasses. A knit hat was clamped over a head of brown curls with gray corkscrewing through them. Her tweed coat suggested a bear newly emerged from hibernation. She said, “Most of the time we only say what other people expect to hear. Too many dead words smothered inside of us.”
Julia nodded. She was reminded of all the reasons you did not strike up conversations with strangers on the street. She felt waves of heat coursing through her and wondered if she was unwell. The weak sun hurt her eyes and she closed them again, but this time she didn’t drift away. She was too conscious of the woman’s presence at her elbow. “‘Speech after long silence, that is right,’” the woman said, just as if Julia had spoken and it was now her turn to reply. “It’s a poem. By somebody or other. About heartfelt communication.”
Julia glanced at her between her eyelashes, then looked down the street to see if her bus was approaching. There were a couple she could take if she wished to, with varying degrees of inconvenience, but none was in sight. “Yeah, that’s important.” Usually it was best to just agree with people.
“See,” the woman said, “right there, you’re just being polite, making some polite noise, instead of letting that great big sadness out.”
“I don’t know you, do I?”
“Anyone could see it in you.” She opened her pursy handbag and began rummaging around in it.
“I’m sorry,” Julia said. “I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m just feeling out of sorts. Acting out of sorts. Sorry.” She was behaving like a total crazy idiot, one of the city’s population of crazy idiots. Next she’d probably take to walking the streets with a sandwich board draped over her: I Am So Screwed Up.
“There’s a spirit around you,” the woman said in the same conversational tone. “Or more like an aura. It’s very disorganized. But he’s a sad spirit, that’s what’s shadowing you.”
Julia felt her face pulling in different directions, losing its shape.
“Yes, it’s definitely a man. I’m not getting much else. Except the sadness. All around you, like a gray cloud.”
“Stop it.”
“I’m so sorry.” Again, the hand on her arm. The woman’s blue eyes behind her glasses were magnified to an alarming degree, like looking at insect life under a lens. “You must miss him terribly. You poor dear.”
It would be so stupid to start crying, so maudlin and unworthy, just because a stranger pitied her. And what did she have to cry about anyway; she was young, healthy, she was unscathed. And yet she was crying, small, crabbed, ungenerous tears, as the sun shone and the traffic rolled and sighed, rolled and sighed around her.
It didn’t last long, and she sniffled a bit, and looked up, glassy-eyed. The woman was no longer in the space beside her. Julia thought she saw her lumpy wool hat in the windows of a departing bus.
She didn’t believe in ghosts, auras, or any other such New Age notion. She thought it was for the weak-minded, she thought it was sentimental. When people talked about guardian angels or spirit guides, she was embarrassed for them. And it was certainly true, as the woman had said, that anyone could have seen her sadness, even without her own helpful commentary. Who was she anyway, an unlikely gypsy or street person? Maybe it was a scam, a setup, something done to get money.
But her mind wouldn’t let loose of it. A disorganized spirit! She would have loved to share the joke with him; he was the most disorganized person she knew, always losing track of the time, day of the week, keys, shoes, anything. If there were such things as ghosts, his would have managed to get confused and turned around by the whole death thing. He would be drifting around in the ether, much as he used to keep circling the same block, looking for a parking space. See? Julia would tell him. You’re doing it again. Which was either communing with a spirit, or simply talking to herself, or maybe one began where the other left off, and she was an addled fool to give it any space in her mind.
Although Julia waited for the same bus at the same time of day, the Psychic Housewife, as Julia came to think of her, did not reappear. It was a little disappointing, but even more of a relief. Then one night she had a dream about her boyfriend, the first she’d had since his death, and in the dream he was lying next to her in bed, but dressed in a suit that she associated with funerals, and he was asking her, sadly, why she had given up on him.
It freaked her. That was what she said to her friend, who she phoned later that day. “I could feel him next to me, I woke up and I was panicking, groping around in the bed for him.”
“That is so weird,” her friend said, in a way that irritated Julia. Weird made it into a spectacle, a curiosity. “But you know, that’s what the mind does. Plays gruesome tricks.”
Julia said she guessed so. Of course it was what she’d told herself. It wasn’t, after all, a complicated dream. She said, “But say it was you who died. Wouldn’t you want to come back and see people? Wouldn’t he want to come back and see me?”
“Julia, honey.”
“Especially if you didn’t expect to die, if you died young like that, without any chance to say good-bye. Just allow for the possibility.”
The silence on the other end of the phone indicated that her friend was considering how best to respond. Julia encountered many such silences these days. While people wanted to be supportive, and while they knew it had been a loss, nothing you’d wish on anybody, it wasn’t some mega-tragedy. Julia hadn’t discovered his lifeless body, or witnessed his shooting in a street robbery, or any other horror that happened on a daily basis, no, the man had died in a nice, sanitary hospital. The friend said, “I think it’s one part of you talking to another part. You still miss him, you’re still hung up on what happened, but here you are, living your life, going on with it, and you’re all guilty and conflicted.”
“You’re probably right.”
“We need to find you some fun dates. Beer and pizza. Bowling. Any old dumb thing to get your meter running again.”
She didn’t want to get her meter running. She didn’t want a logical explanation. She had always thought of herself as practical, steady, reliable to the point of dullness. Different people she knew had launched themselves in odd directions, had a fling at Buddhism or Christian farming co-ops, embraced animal rights or Alcoholics Anonymous, or changed genders, adopted Chinese girl babies, any manner of dramatic transformations. All the while Julia went about her business, put money in her 401(k), changed her oil and antifreeze on schedule, remembered people’s birthdays. She’d been unhappy at times, all the usual growing-up stuff: loneliness, self-hatred, the boys who hadn’t loved her back, the drip drip drip of her mother’s criticism. Then later, the disappointments of adulthood: doubt, fatigue, the realization that some struggles were the sort that lasted the rest of your life. She thought she’d faced her share of suffering, thought she’d acquired solid credentials. But nothing had upended her as this had, unraveled her nature to the point where she might believe anything of herself, and of the confounding world.
That night she tried to coax him to her, sat in unmoving silence while the evening drained out of the windows and shadows softened the rooms. Then she got up and lit a candle, stared into the small universe of flame, tried to will herself into a receptive state. There were different layers and levels of silence, of concentration; she felt herself falling through them one by one. Then a noise from the street dragged her back up to the surface, and she was embarrassed. It wasn’t something she would have admitted to doing.
No more dreams came to her. People gradually ceased making solicitous inquiries. This was the much-desired moving on. Then one day at a bookstore, Julia saw an ann
ouncement of a talk by a man who had written a book about psychic phenomena. The author’s photo showed him to be extravagantly bearded, with the in-the-know smile of a man who had unlocked a few of the universe’s secrets. Julia decided to go listen to him, even though it seemed rather unworthy, almost like going to see pornography.
She got there early, visited the coffee bar, then browsed through the magazines, keeping an eye on the ranks of folding chairs set up in a corner. When they began to fill, she took a seat near the back. There were more people than she would have expected, an actual crowd. The author’s name was Rory McAllister, and he seemed to be famous in some way she’d never heard of. He was introduced by a bookstore employee as Dr. McAllister, although what it was he doctored was not specified. There was some light applause. He was older and puffier than his photo, more like an off-duty Santa than a portal to the metaphysical. Julia scolded herself for being so unpleasantly judgmental and dismissive. Lay off. She’d come in the first place, she might as well hear him out.
Rory McAllister thanked them for attending and made a few jokes about his previous books and his publisher’s misgivings, remarks that sailed right past Julia, although the rest of the crowd chuckled comfortably. He said, “I thought tonight I’d spend some time talking about synchronicity, coincidence, and the probability studies that have tried to examine the phenomenon. To put it one way, is experience random? Or part of a field, in the way physics uses the term, a field of moving spirits, with its own set of variables, vectors, and velocities?”
In spite of her good intentions, Julia was already faintly bored. Her eyes wandered to the other people in the audience, who looked to be what you’d expect: serious, unchatty people, most of them older than herself. They were paying close attention, as if variables and fields and probabilities were what they had come to hear. Julia wasn’t sure what she’d expected. A séance? She was wondering if she might get up and take herself quietly off when two rows up, the Psychic Housewife turned and looked directly at her. Julia’s heart banged around in her chest.
Rory McAllister was saying, “Once we allow for the possibility of an order and a plan to the universe, a guiding intelligence, what some call God, it is as if we journey through a strange country where we’ve never been, yet keep encountering beloved faces.”
Julia composed herself for the remainder of the speech, and when people applauded, and began to crowd around the table where Rory McAllister was installed to sign books, she got up and made her way over to where the woman stood, in conversation with a tall man who stooped a bit to hear her; her hand was on his arm. “… discouraging,” Julia heard her saying. And, “Even the rock gives water when it is called upon.”
The man murmured something Julia couldn’t catch, and they parted. The woman turned toward Julia, smiling. “What a coincidence,” she said, and laughed at her own joke.
“I want to know how you did it.”
She was wearing a warm-weather version of her earlier dowdy costume: a bunchy cardigan, lavender in color, ornamented with fabric daisies, a white cotton turtleneck, and a long denim skirt. Through some oddity of the reflected light, her eyes behind the glasses looked almost transparent, like milk poured into a blue saucer. “How I did what?”
“What you said about the spirit . . .” Again she felt suddenly and horribly conspicuous, as if she might be wreathed in unseen energies.
The woman considered her for a moment, then held out her hand. “I’m Fay. Fay Kjellander.”
Julia spoke her own name and shook Fay’s hand, which was small but lingering. Fay was a couple of inches shorter than Julia was; she tilted her face upward, her eyeglasses catching the light and reflecting the room in miniature oblongs. Fay said, “Really, there’s no need for you to be upset.”
“Either something really bizarre is happening, or else I’m losing my mind.”
“Surely,” said Fay pleasantly, “those aren’t the only possibilities.”
“I have to know if it’s real, what you saw, or if it’s just some kind of party trick.”
“‘Real’ is one of those unfortunate words, in my opinion.”
“And what do you mean, help. It doesn’t help anyone to tell them they’re being haunted.”
Fay looked at her, a little sadly. “It might make you feel better not to think of it as a haunting.”
Julia didn’t answer. She felt like a furious child after an outburst, backed into a corner of her own making. Fay sighed. “Come on, let’s go see Rory.”
She stepped to one side, an invitation, and Julia trudged forward, irritated and apprehensive. Other people greeted Fay as they approached Rory’s table. So nice to see you again. You too. The psychic regulars, Julia guessed. Finally the crowd around Rory McAllister thinned, and Fay steered Julia to stand in front of him.
“Fay!” Rory McAllister rose out of his chair to greet her. Viewed from up close, he looked rather unwell, the skin beneath his eyes dark and sagging. There was a hint of palsy in his hands as he clasped Fay’s. “I was hoping you’d be here.”
“Now you know I wasn’t about to miss it.” To Julia she said, “It’s Rory’s eighth book. He’s at the top of his form. This is Julia, I wanted you to meet her.”
Julia, sulky now, murmured hello. She kept her eyes lowered; even so, she was aware of Rory McAllister looking her over, not unkindly.
Rory and Fay both began talking at the same time.
“I thought it would be nice—”
“Perhaps if you had time—”
“That would be lovely.”
“And if your friend—”
Fay said, coaxingly, “Please come get a bite to eat with us. We’d be so pleased.”
“I don’t think I—”
“You have questions, don’t you? And Rory’s the best there is. He’s been at this more than forty years. Now don’t be shy. You’re actually not a shy person, are you? Quite the contrary. Anyone could see it in you.”
Rory was a vegetarian, and so they ended up at an Indian restaurant where the menu ran to cauliflower and lentils. They were joined by a man who was introduced as Saybrook, although it was unclear if this was his first or last name. He had a shaved head, like a biker or a convict, and he busied himself with a BlackBerry he worked away at, hunching his shoulders around it. “I’m the media escort,” he explained to Julia, as they were standing at the entrance, waiting to get a table. “This is the fourth stop on a ten-city tour.”
Julia said that ten cities sounded like a lot. She was unsure just how impressed she was meant to be. Saybrook was the kind of man she might have once found attractive, all self-consciousness, hipness, and energy. She wondered if she should flirt, pretend an interest, take him to bed. Just to get her meter running.
“Yeah, he’s a pretty big deal among all the psychic friends. Sorry. Didn’t mean to make fun.”
“That’s all right. I’m just tagging along.”
“Yeah?” Saybrook kept an eye on Rory and Fay, standing a little distance away. The restaurant was noisy and he leaned over to direct his words into Julia’s ear. “Most of the time I think, woo woo, too much, you know, etheric vision, indigo children, harmonic convergence, these guys are off in their own private Disneyland. Then sometimes they come up with something that really makes you wonder. In a creepy way, I mean—” His phone buzzed and he spoke into it. “Not yet. Give me twenty minutes. Yeah.” Then to Julia, “Sorry. More media drama.” He smiled to indicate that it was a date or an assignation, he was that kind of guy, and did she want to play? “So, are you into this psychic stuff at all?”
“Not exactly into it. More like, having it come after me.”
“How’s that?”
“I think my dead boyfriend’s following me around.”
Saybrook took himself off, and Julia, Rory, and Fay were seated at a table in an alcove, screened off by sagging curtains. Tea was brought to them. Julia kept silent except to order, as Fay and Rory talked lightly about people they knew. Piped music, some spidery
Indian instrument, played overhead. Currents of food smells, hot and aromatic, curled almost visibly through the air. It wasn’t the sort of place Julia or her friends frequented. They preferred their ethnic restaurants to be well, rather less ethnic.
Their food came, little plates of brown things, curried things. Rory ate very slowly, putting his fork down between bites. He said to Julia, “I understand you’ve had a recent loss.”
“Yes. Well, recent . . .” She wasn’t sure what qualified.
Fay said, “All sorts of time issues. They’re coming up everywhere. She’s so confused.”
“Time,” said Rory, echoing.
“Too soon too soon.”
“And suddenly.”
“He was so young.”
“But not an accident. Nothing like that.”
“No. The air went out of him.”
Julia’s hand was on the table top. Fay reached out and curled her fingers around it. “He was cheated. You both were. It was over just as it was beginning. You thought you had all the time in the world and so you were careless with it, but how could you have known? The last time you would speak, eat a meal together, make love. Oh, it’s terrible to still want what the body wants, like phantom pain in an amputated limb, but so much worse . . .”
Julia jerked her hand away. The thick smells of the restaurant food filled her nose. She was afraid she might vomit. She closed her eyes and a roaring sound enveloped her, like the noise of a crowd heard from far away. Then a cold cloth touched her forehead. Fay said, “Can you hear me? Julia?”
She opened her eyes. Rory and Fay and one of the Indian waiters were hovering over her. She felt bleary, disoriented. “What . . .”
“Mint tea,” said Fay, lifting a cup to her. “Try and drink a little.”
Rory asked, “Do you have a history of seizures? Anything of that sort?” To the waiter he said, “Perhaps you could bring her some broth.” The waiter withdrew. “How are you feeling? You went on quite the little holiday there. We’re so sorry. We shouldn’t have done that.”
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