by Amber Foxx
“All right, not even light out yet. We just need to air the furniture and we’re done.” He clapped his hands together overhead, looked at Mae. “Ready? You can lift as much as I can, I bet.”
“What, take it outside?”
“Yeah, blow the stink off.”
“What if it rains?”
“Not ’til tomorrow afternoon. Monsoons hit at two or three, usually. Night sometimes, but there’re no clouds. I’ll help you put it back in, rock up around two or so.” He squatted and began to lift one end of the couch. Pie ran out and dashed into the bedroom with a terrified squawk, and Jamie set the couch down with a look of shock and worry. “Fuck. Poor thing. That’s that same cat. Sweetiepie. Must be a hundred years old now. Is she all right?”
“No. I think the dog must have scared her a lot. She’s kind of traumatized.”
“You’re a healer, though, right? You said you do that stuff. You can help her.”
“I can’t get hold of her.”
“Sure you can. Got some cat food?”
He walked into the kitchen, opened cabinets until he found the cans, and then dug through drawers. “Place needs better cooking stuff. Bodgy knives and things.” Flourishing a can opener, he closed the drawer and sang under his breath as he opened the cat food. “Love cats, hate cat food. Smell that dead fish.”
He dipped his fingers in the stuff nonetheless, and walked to the bedroom. In slow motion, he lay on the floor near the bed and even more slowly, seeming to take ten minutes or more, extended his arm under the bed, cat-food fingers reaching toward Pie.
“Now don’t make me laugh, all right?” Jamie whispered. “I’ve got enough bloody methane built up to melt the polar ice caps. Don’t want to scare poor old Pie.”
Mae sat in the big green-and-yellow wooden chair beside the bed, kept back a laugh and said nothing. Fart jokes again, and she thought it was funny. She was punchy from lack of sleep and physical exhaustion as well as the altitude. And she was starting to like him, crudeness, cussing, bad manners and all, the way she might feel if she’d had a brother. Smiling, she watched him, waited for Pie.
Nothing happened.
How could he be so patient and kind, and yet so moody and erratic? What a puzzling person. As Jamie held still and made no sound, Mae began to feel drained and sleepy. Her eyes dropped shut. It was what—three in the morning?
In seconds she was in the psychic tunnel and then plunged through it, coming out on a beach. Two boys walked hand in hand, a white boy about twelve or thirteen with a stocky build and red face, and a chubby dark brown boy of about three, with thick ash blond hair. The older boy had the air of a martyr as the little one clung to him, and he shook the toddler off. “I’m taking a dip. It’s too bloody hot and I’m sick of you, all right? Stay put.”
“But the jellyfish. Mum said jellyfish.”
“I’m not scared of jellyfish.” The older boy splashed out into the waves, and the young one stared after him, digging his toes into the sand. The scene blurred, and now the older boy lay in the shallow surf, his eyes wide open, his once red face now blue, the little boy again holding his hand, whispering, “Come on Pat, come back. Pat? Pat?” A lifeguard stood behind them, talking on a radio, and Mae could make out the words “sea wasp.” The older boy made a sound, a gasping rattle, and the little boy, gazing into Pat’s open eyes, seemed to hold his own breath as the other’s stopped.
“Mae, she’s licking my fingers,” Jamie whispered. She opened her eyes. What had she just seen? It looked like his friend or babysitter had died before his eyes when he was little. Did he remember it? Could he have understood what happened? Witnessing death, at such an age. And why had she seen this? Her mind jumped to the kid who’d died under the bridge. Son of some friends of ours found him. His folks said it shook him up pretty bad.
“Love that little funny cat tongue. Yeah, good girl, Pie, that’s it. You’re safe, love.” Still in slow motion, Jamie extended his other arm under the bed, no faster than his first reach. Then, bending his knees so he could use his feet to drag himself on his back along the floor, he brought the thin, old cat out from under the bed. He drew her to his chest and held her. “Got you, Pie. You’ll be all right. No more dog.”
I could have done that. Mae hadn’t even thought of it. “You’re good with her.”
“Fear. Y’know? I get it. I’m a fucking fear machine and a trauma magnet.” He stroked Pie’s thick fur and smiled. “Could you take her, love? Let’s feed her in the kitchen, let her feel all loved and taken care of.” His voice was so tender, Mae wondered if he’d be a good father—if he were more stable. Mae took the cat to let Jamie get up, and carried Pie to the kitchen. The old cat felt as if she weighed only about three pounds.
Jamie followed. He put a little blob of cat food in a bowl, set a bowl of water beside it, and sat on the floor beside Pie, talking nonsense in a soothing voice. When Pie looked around nervously, he held still, and then reached his hand slowly toward her. She sniffed it, and let him touch her. He petted her, and she turned back to her food. When she seemed calm, he rubbed her back, massaging her bony shoulders.
“You can heal her now, love.” He looked at Mae. “All yours.”
“I think you already did.”
“Nah, just tamed her. The crap doesn’t go out of your head that fast.”
“It doesn’t with energy healing, either. It’s just a start. Like what you did. Maybe you’d be a good healer.”
“Nah. Too bloody fucked up.” He glanced down at Pie, and then stood. “But thanks. Let’s move some furniture. After I—” He ran from the kitchen through the living room and out the back door, letting it slam. After a moment, the snort-laugh. “Jeeezus. Hope I didn’t kill the plants.” He came back in, twitched a corner of a smile. “Sorry. Just shoot me.”
They carried the kitchen chairs, the living room chairs, the sofa, and even the mattress and box spring into the garden, leaning the bed parts against the adobe wall and setting the rest of the furniture along the path. Mae collapsed onto the couch and looked up at the blazing stars. She wanted to go to bed, but was too tired to get back up, and too grateful to Jamie to evict him quite yet. “I don’t think I can move.”
“You don’t have to.” He held up a hand, signaling her to wait, jogged into the house, and returned with two beers. Ruth’s beer supply was the only thing they hadn’t thrown out from the refrigerator. He opened both, handed one to Mae. “Washed the tops off, hate to think what was on ’em. Cheers, then. Fucking cheap piss, but it’s the champagne of the moment. We’re done.”
Remaining where she had flopped back, Mae clicked her beer can to his. “To your kindness, sugar. You helped me and Pie more than I can say.”
“My pleasure. It was fun. Anyway, I hated to think of this lovely place all vile and stinking.” He slouched beside her, stretched his legs out, drank his beer, and belched as loudly as an opera singer could project his voice. “Sorry. Forgot. Thanks for putting up with me.”
What a funny thing to say. Putting up with him? He’d done half her work for her and tamed the traumatized cat, and he thought she’d had to tolerate him. She had expected it would be hard, but his lapses of grace and manners had already stopped bothering her. She looked over to him in the starlight, and he was smiling at her, the gold tooth glinting. A lot was strange about him, and that tooth had to be one of the oddest things. In her fatigue, she didn’t filter the question, though it sounded rude as soon as it was out. “Why do you have a gold tooth?”
“Good onya. Still asking nosy questions. I broke it. Sped into a pothole on my bike and smashed my mouth on the road in India when I was thirteen. Village dentist didn’t do porcelain. Old-fashioned. He said gold was ‘very good.’ ” Jamie imitated a strong India accent. “That gold had some kind of signature, like it was good for you, your luck, your energy, something.”
“That kinda makes sense. Minerals having some vibrations or effects. I work with crystals as a healer. Did the gold work?”
&
nbsp; “Maybe. Didn’t have another trauma for,” he looked thoughtful, “five years. But that’s not why I kept it. Having it done was so bloody awful I didn’t want to go through replacing it with a white tooth. So there you have it. My souvenir of our year in India. A gold tooth and my fear of the dentist, fear number five hundred and nine.” He lifted the beer, gestured a toast and took a long swallow. “You finally asked me a question.” He grinned. “First one since we left the bar.”
“You asked me so many, I didn’t get a chance.”
“Nah, you’re not nosy like I am. Keep to yourself, mind your own bizzo. Am I right?”
It was what mountain people were like. Appalachian normal. “Kind of. I try, anyway.”
“So try not to. Ask me something else.”
So many things she could ask. What had happened to him in the bar, why did he call himself a trauma magnet, why had his family been in India for a year ... But she hadn’t ever gotten a firm answer to her first question of the night.
“Are you gonna call Wendy?”
He closed his eyes. “Fuck. Dunno.”
She remembered the out-of-service message on his phone. He hadn’t paid his phone bill, had he? Did that mean he couldn’t call her? No, he probably had a land line at home. He spent money, ate out—the bartender had identified that meal as “his usual.” He didn’t act poor, although his van looked neglected. More likely he was chaotic and didn’t get around to things. That explanation fit with the way his mind bounced around.
“Why not? You need a manager.”
Squeezing his eyes shut tighter Jamie shook his head, and then sat up and looked at the statue. He drank from his beer and set it down. “I guess I should go. Let you rest.” He swallowed hard, nodded to the statue. Some unspilled emotion roughened his voice. “She’ll keep you company. Pie will, too.”
“Jamie? What’s the matter?”
“Nothing, love.” He stood. “Why don’t you bring Pie out here to sleep with you? It’ll do her good. All right? Hold her.” He smiled down at her tenderly, then more brightly, as a thought seemed to flash into his mind. “Don’t move.”
He dashed into the house, came back at a slower pace with a blanket and the cat, tucked the blanket over Mae’s legs, and settled Pie onto her lap. “There you go.” He stroked Pie, straightened up. “See you tomorrow. We’ll move the furniture in. Sweet dreams, both of you.” He tipped his hat to her and walked out the back of the garden, his steps as silent as a cat’s.
Mae wanted to think about what had happened, all of it, to figure him out. How much trauma had he had? Was finding the dead homeless kid part of it? Why wouldn’t he call Wendy? What was wrong with him—having that spell in the bar? Her tired brain wouldn’t hold on to the thoughts, and the last thing she noticed was the van’s double cough before it started, followed by its rumbling unhealthy departure. She fell into a state like sleep with Pie purring in her lap. It wasn’t sleep, but she was too exhausted to notice the difference or control it as the tunnel that signaled a psychic journey opened yet again.
Chapter Nine
As the tunnel pulled her in, she felt a bright splash of emotion spread over her body, soaking into her arms and chest, and then she saw Jamie. The event had to be in the past. He had slightly shorter hair and was fifteen or twenty pounds heavier, fit and healthy. Climbing the outdoor stairway in an apartment complex, carrying a plastic bag from a department store, he sang aloud, something cheerful and operatic. He let himself into an apartment with frilled curtains and pink and blue cushions on a blue sofa. In the kitchen, he opened the package and took out a wooden box of chef’s knives, washed each one by hand, dried them, and left two out on the counter. He put the others back in their slots.
Singing more softly now, he began to prepare a meal, starting rice in a rice cooker, pressing the water out of a block of tofu with a plate, and peeling garlic and onions.
A gray tabby cat pattered in and began to rub around Jamie’s ankles. He reached down and petted the cat, talking to it, washed his hands, and resumed chopping. The sound of the living room door made him turn and call out, “Hello, love. How are you?”
A blonde woman with an oval face, narrow shoulders, and surprisingly curvy hips for her delicate frame, came into the kitchen. “I’m good.” She stood beside Jamie as he bent down to give her a kiss. “Students did all right on their presentations.” She glanced at what he was doing, and looked up at him. “Why are you home already? Don’t you have a rehearsal?”
“Cancelled it. They’re driving me crazy, and it’s a short drive. Have to ... dunno ... do something. It feels like—adversarial, y’know? Bunch of teenage coyotes waiting to pounce.”
“Avoiding them won’t fix it.”
“I know. But it feels like going to fucking school all over again.”
“So you cook.” She shook her head. “That’s not going to help. You’re spending too much time in the kitchen.”
“What? Am I fat?” His eyes darkened, his voice sounded hurt. “Fuck. I’m trying not to be.”
“I didn’t say you were fat. You look fine. Chill. But you’re wasting time and money.” She looked at his hands, chopping garlic, and then at the new wooden box of knives. “You bought knives?”
“I got the small set, not the big two thousand dollar thing. This was only eight hundred. No meat knives.”
“I asked you not to.”
“Yeah, but don’t you want me to cook for you?” Sliding the garlic aside, he brought a head of cabbage to the cutting board. “I’m sick of those little cheap dull knives. You can’t even slice a fucking tomato.”
The woman sighed, leaning against the counter. “It’s not just the money. You know that.”
“So I have to work with fucking kindergarten scissors for the rest of my life?”
“I don’t see you handling stress so well.”
“Or money, or my job, or fuck-all anything.” He rammed the knife into the cabbage and shoved the entire half-prepared meal aside, spilling garlic and tofu along the counter and into the sink with unwashed dishes and soapy water. “I’m not going to do some bloody stupid thing with a knife.”
“Really?” His girlfriend pulled the knife out of the cabbage with obvious effort—he seemed to have stuck it all the way into the cutting board—and washed the knife, as well as the smaller one he’d used for the garlic. Turning off the rice cooker, she wiped the knives down and put them back in the box, checked the bag for the receipt, and then placed the knife set in the bag. “I’m taking them back. Now. I think you just proved my point.”
“Lisa.” He glared at her. “I just want to fucking cook. You don’t get it.” Jamie walked to the door, caught himself in the doorway with both arms, his voice tight with pain. “You don’t get me.”
“I look at those scars every day. I get that.”
He strode out through the living room and out the door, leaving it wide open, and ran down the outdoor staircase. At the bottom, he leaned against the adobe wall in the streetlight semi-darkness, closed his eyes, and slid into a huddle on his knees. Head against the wall, fists against his chest, he seemed to struggle for breath. Lisa followed him, her steps small and slow. After a frozen moment she came up behind him, sat on the gravel, and laid a hand in his shoulder.
He clasped her hand and whispered, “Please. Please, just let me feel like a normal human being.”
Too distant to be comforting, too close to be cold, her eyes sad and tired, she said nothing, letting him cling to her hand.
Mae woke up in a sweat, feeling suffocated. Was the sensation something left over from being in Jamie’s mind? She pulled off his sweatshirt and dropped it on the ground. The night air chilled her damp skin. She drew the blanket up. The stars looked even wilder and brighter now. Pie crept under the blanket and cuddled close. Mae wanted to think it out, to understand, but exhaustion took her once more, this time into a heavy, dreamless sleep.
Where was she? Somewhere hot, stifled, and dark. Mae flung the cover off her
face and found she was in the garden, on the couch. She must have sheltered from the sun under the blanket. Getting up, she slung it over her shoulder, propped the pillows against the side of the couch to air and carried Pie inside.
In the kitchen, Mae drank two glasses of water, overwhelmed by the desert air, and put the blanket away in the bedroom closet. She remembered the beer in the garden and went back for it, not wanting to have a new mess as a result of cleaning the old one. Jamie’s Don’t Worry Be Hopi sweatshirt lay on the bricks beside the open cans of warm beer. The images flooded back to her.
Twice, she’d fallen into psychic visions and seen his life. First the death on the beach, then the argument about knives. She’d been wearing his shirt, wrapped in his energy. What was wrong with him, the self-described trauma magnet, the man who called himself too fucked up? He’d said that after the gold tooth he didn’t have another trauma for five years, as if this gap was a record. Pat’s death must have been the first, but there had been others, more serious than painful dentistry.
What scars had Lisa been talking about? Were they hers or his? What had he done with a knife? The ferocity with which he had stabbed the cabbage, even though it had only been a vegetable, was troubling. He got angry with a knife in his hand and struck out with it.
Mae looked around at the furniture in the garden, the hard work Jamie had helped her accomplish. She returned to the spotless kitchen, dumped the remainder of the beer down the sink, dropped the cans in the recycling bin, and fed the now friendly cat. Jamie had done all that work, and tamed Pie. It seemed so unlikely, and yet, was it possible he could be dangerous? He had a short fuse and a hot temper. Niall had said to trust him. But something bad had happened, and Marty and Niall might have been gone from Santa Fe by then. Would they know what it was?
Marty didn’t answer his cell phone, and Mae remembered he was running a week-long softball camp for middle school girls. She tried the landline, and Niall answered with a disgruntled, “What?” as if he didn’t think phones should ring.