by Amber Foxx
No wonder she couldn’t get rid of him. He was afraid to leave. She thought of the fear list, sipped her water, and took a moment to piece together how the other fears fit his behavior. Fear of being fat. Did he have an eating disorder? He was skinny and went without meals, but when he ate, he ate like a ravenously hungry person, not like an anorexic. And he’d been honest about his other diagnoses and worries, except that his fear of numbers, legal documents, and reading directions suggested he might have learning disabilities on top of everything else.
“Do you panic when you have to deal with a lot of things for your career?”
“Yeah. Lisa handled all of it. Contracts, marketing, booking recording studios, performances. I’m bad at all that. Something in me just shakes and runs when I see a bunch of little dense words on a screen or piece of paper, and I’m not stupid, I can read, but I get scared of that stuff ... Bad at math to the point that it frightens me.”
This might explain some of his failure to establish a career on his own, but it didn’t explain his aversion and fear over getting in touch with Wendy. “So you should be really glad to get a professional manager.”
He did the fifty-fifty shrug. “If she doesn’t reject me.”
“She won’t.” Of course, if she got to know him, she really might think twice, but Mae had to hope Wendy would find him worth the challenges. “She wants to work with you. You look like you’re feeling better. Can we call her now?”
Jamie shook his head, retreating into the corner of the couch. “Not ready,” he said. “Tomorrow.”
“Why do you have to put it off? I’m here to help you. You don’t have to be scared.”
Drawing his legs up, he wrapped into a condensed, protective huddle and shook his head again.
Mae sighed. “I’m trying, sugar, but I still don’t understand you.”
For some reason this appeared to strike Jamie as funny, and he laughed, unfolded, and reached for his beer. “Bloody hell, neither do I.” He drank, emptying the can. “I had therapy way back when, but it’s like cleaning up fucking Chernobyl.”
“And you can’t get therapy now, uninsured.”
“Not unless I could pay a fortune. And I already owe for my hip.”
“Can I just say that rock climbing is a crazy hobby for a man with a panic disorder and no health insurance?”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Jamie leaned back and grinned at her. “I’m not scared of heights.”
Just as he seemed to be reviving, Mae felt drained. What were the chances he’d stay upbeat long enough to go home intact and safe? He was scared of sleeping alone. She wished he hadn’t told her that. But if he wasn’t going to call Wendy, it was best to get him moving now, while his mood was brightening.
He rose, took the beer can to the recycling bin in the kitchen, and started toward the bathroom. “Got a spare toothbrush? I’m getting a little anxious about the teeth.”
There was such a moving-in, weirdly intimate thing about this request, she didn’t want to answer it, though she had a spare toothbrush. “I’m taking you home now. You can wait.”
“Nah. Can’t. Seriously.”
She could hear him taking a piss with the door open. Either he felt too much at home, or it wasn’t just his table manners that needed civilizing. “Look in the cabinet under the sink.”
“Thanks, love.”
She got her purse, took her keys out, and made sure she was standing by the door putting shoes on when Jamie emerged.
His face lit up. “Where are we going?”
“I’m kind of tired, sugar. I just told you a minute ago, I’m gonna take you home.”
“Oh.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Sorry. I was getting on a roll. Sort of ... refreshed, y’know? Got all that out of me. Not pissing, I mean, y’know, crying. Telling you about me.”
“Then that’s a good time to go home. While you feel good.”
He shook his head. “I need to ...” He mimed juggling, his eyes following the imaginary balls in the air, and looked at her as if she should understand. She didn’t, and shook her head, holding up her keys. Jamie dropped the invisible balls and let them roll away, watching them, and then joined her at the door and slipped into his sandals. “All right. I’m on my bike.”
“You need a ride. Your bike’s messed up.”
“Meant, like, ’Strayan for go away, rack off. Onya bike. The van’s just a mile off, actually. Not a bad hike.”
“Let me drive you.” She opened the door and stepped out. “You’ve got a bad hip, a wrecked bike, a van that makes noises—”
“Jeezus.” Following her, Jamie took his bike from its place against the house and began to wheel it toward the street. “You make me sound like a fucking orphan.”
Mae locked the door. “You won’t be once you get the bike fixed. And the van.” Suspecting the depth of his attachment to his bike, she caught up with him, put her hand to the handlebar and began to steer it around the corner toward the alley and the carport. He wouldn’t fight her if she was holding his bike. “We’re going to the Ford place tomorrow, remember?”
“That’s right, yeah. We’ve got to get your car in tomorrow.” Why did he sound so happy? Like he thought this was a date? For an oil change? Jamie took his hands off the bike, letting her steer. “And it’s Latin music tomorrow night in the Plaza, I’ve got to teach you salsa and rumba.” He executed a hip-leading dance step, turning as if he had a partner is his arms. “And when are you ever going to get that chance again? And—d’you want to go the Geneveva with me?”
“The what?”
“The Geneveva Chavez Center, the community fitness place. It’s fucking incredible. The pool is gorgeous—but you’d want the weight room, I suppose. I mean, you must want to do your thing, whatever you normally do.”
It would feel good to go there. She hadn’t done her strength workout for a while, and it was something that the altitude wouldn’t compromise. After all, she’d urged him to get the van fixed while she got her oil changed. “All right. We’ll do that in the morning. But here’s the deal. While we wait at the Ford place, we’re on the phone to Wendy. No more delays.”
They reached her car, she opened the trunk, and Jamie lifted the bike in. In its deformed shape, it almost fit, and he regarded it sadly, spinning the airborne front wheel. “Yeah, I’ll be all peaceful after my swim.” He looked at her, his eyes unguarded. “You’re sure it’s all right? I mean, you’re sending me home, and I—I told you how crazy I am. And I cried. Jesus. I like you so much, and—maybe you—”
“Don’t take it personally. I’m tired, that’s all.”
It wasn’t all, but what else could she say? I like you so much. What kind of adult man said things like that? For someone afraid of rejection, he sure did set himself up for it, those baby seal eyes waiting for the hit, a kick-me sign right on his heart.
As they got in her car, Mae asked, pushing through her guilt, “Are you gonna be all right if I take you home?”
“You’re taking me to the van.” Jamie reached up with both hands and began to work on a knot in his hair. “Fuck. Don’t have a comb, do you?”
“In the outside pocket of my purse.”
“Thanks.”
While she backed the car out, turned around in the end of the neighbor’s parking spot, and took the alley to Delgado, Jamie began to comb his hair, wincing at knots, stopping to untangle them with small groans as if it were far more painful than it could actually be. “Ow! Fuck!” Jamie dropped the comb in his lap and ran his fingers through his hair. “Bloody hell. I didn’t wear my hat. I wanted to be pretty. Fucking imbecile.”
“Stop complaining. You could do a ponytail.”
“Scar shows.” Growling, he aimed a snapping-jaws hand at his right ear, and resumed combing. “When we stop, could you groom me? I like to have someone do my hair. Better with a brush, but you could comb it.”
“No, I am not grooming you.” What a bizarre request, and yet he didn’t eve
n seem embarrassed to ask it. “Where’s your van?”
“De Vargas Mall.”
“I don’t know where that is.”
He attended to a tangle, saying in a small voice, “Better if you do it.”
“Sugar, what’s bothering you? You said you’d be all right, but this is kind of neurotic, with the hair.”
“Nah. Makes me calm. It’d help me sleep. I told you, sleep is hard.”
As they passed the bridge, she wondered if there was more to his insomnia, some other trauma he hadn’t shared yet. She kept her voice gentle. “Did you find him? That kid that died down there?”
His eyes widened. “Who told you?”
“Daddy. He didn’t say it was you, but he said it was the son of some friends. I thought it might have got to you pretty bad if you saw this kid die.”
“Fuck.” Jamie stopped working on the tangle, the comb hanging from his hair. “Nobody knows that. That he wasn’t dead yet.”
Mae realized she’d made that assumption after her vision of Jamie’s early trauma, witnessing a death. “I didn’t know, sugar. I guessed.”
Jamie yanked the comb out and leaned back, folded his arms across his stomach and fidgeted, the comb falling into the space between his thighs. Finally, he gave directions. “Turn here. Left at the light. You’ll see the van up near the road.”
This seemed like a signal not to pry. As much as he’d bared his heart and soul, this last trauma might still be more than he could handle talking about. Following his directions, Mae located the mall with ease, pulled into the entrance, and drove up to the van where it sat like a lone, aging dinosaur after the others had all died, its faded skin dull with dirt. She cut off the engine.
“We’re here.”
Jamie nodded, but didn’t stir. After a moment he opened his eyes, picked up the comb, and gestured to her and then toward his hair with it, eyebrows lifted. She shook her head, and he tucked her comb back into her purse. What a strange man.
As she watched him get out of the car, she felt unnaturally aware of his body, the shape of his bones and muscles though his shirt and jeans, as if she could feel him, his physicality suddenly hyper real and tangible. Dispelling the odd feeling, she got out and helped him lift his bike from the trunk. He leaned it against his van and unlocked the ancient vehicle.
While he scrambled through it to unlock the back with the jerry-rigged wire latch, she wondered if he would be all right alone. What would he do when he got home? Stay up until dawn writing music? Pace, panic, cry? What was it like to be him?
The back of the van popped open, and Mae rolled the bike around to the gate and lifted it to Jamie.
“Thanks, love.” With tender care, he nestled it into a spot between cardboard boxes, away from the pillows and blankets that protected the didgeridoo. “I’ll take it in for a fix-up soon.”
While he closed the gate and fiddled with the wire, Mae walked around to the driver’s side to wait for Jamie to crawl through and settle into the seat. Once he was ready to drive, he rolled the window down and reached out to her. She took his hand.
“Are you sure you’ll be all right?” she asked.
“Might roll up to the park by the Zen place, play flutes for a while under the stars. You could come with me.”
The pastime seemed healing enough that she trusted he’d get through the night, even if he didn’t sleep. If she weren’t so tired, it would even be an appealing invitation. “I need to rest.”
Jamie rubbed her thumb, then let go of her hand and leaned across the passenger seat to rummage through the clutter jammed into the open glove box. “Here. You told me how you work, while we were cleaning.” He handed her a small speckled feather. “Don’t like to talk about the dead. But ... think it’s been long enough that I can say his name ... This was Dusty’s. He gave it to me.”
“You knew him?”
“Tried to.”
“Are you asking me to use the sight?”
He nodded. She didn’t want to see what Jamie couldn’t talk about, though. If it was that distressing, it was too private. “I don’t understand. You sure you want me to look? I have clear visions, sugar, I see everything.”
He closed her fingers around the feather. “Find out why he died.”
Mae looked down at their hands, Jamie’s long brown fingers wrapped gently around hers. “I thought he fell.”
He let go. “Yeah, but why? The kid was fucking agile, he wouldn’t fall.” Jamie leaned back and gazed ahead through the windshield. “Sorry. You don’t have to.”
Mae wondered what she would find, if anything. “I’ll try. But more likely I’ll see you, since you’ve kept this feather. I don’t see dead people. I can’t get hold of ’em. It’s not as if they leave ghosts.”
“Jesus, love, every culture’s got ghosts. Hungry ghosts in Japan, Navajo chindi ...” He frowned, clearly puzzled. “Can’t believe you don’t believe in ’em.”
“I never had any reason to. I mean, as a psychic I can’t get any energy from dead people’s things. Like there’s nothing left.”
“But if they don’t die well or need to finish something, they stay around. He didn’t die right or he’d be gone.”
“What? You mean you see him?”
“Yeah. Down where ... Sorry. That’s fucking gloomy.” Jamie shook his head, gave her an incongruous smile, and grasped the steering wheel. “So ... Jeezus. Dunno how to say goodnight. I’d just sit here for hours yabbering at you, and you need to sleep. What time tomorrow?”
“Not too early. Do you sleep once it’s light out?”
“Might.” The smile brightened. “No worries. Nine? Ten?”
Later might let him sleep more. “Ten.”
“Hooroo, then. Catcha.” He started the van and Mae walked back to her car, holding the feather. The van hesitated, jerked, and then crawled out of the mall lot into the street.
She’d gotten more than she asked for. Jamie had not only told her his troubles, he’d given her his ghost.
Chapter Fourteen
After parking in the carport, Mae paused in the garden before going inside. The little speckled feather bothered her, and she didn’t want it in the house, didn’t want to take a ghost’s unanswered questions to bed with her. She had never dealt with the unrestful dead before, and she didn’t feel easy with it. Would the feather really bring her in contact with the dead boy? If ghosts were as real as Jamie believed, they might have energy traces, unlike the peaceful dead. If so, would she get too close to a troubled spirit?
She picked some stalks of sage and bundled them together, remembering the way an American Indian mentor back in Norfolk had used sage and cedar to clear out bad spirits and to make a sacred space. She didn’t have matches to light it and make a smudge stick, but the ceremony of gathering the plants and the calming effect of their scent gave her time to think.
Why am I doing this? She kept saying yes to Jamie. It was one thing to keep an eye on him after he got himself hit by a car, but looking into a death? Her first reaction when her father had told her about the boy under the bridge had been pity for someone alone with nowhere to go, dying without family around. Someone like Kenny when he’d been homeless, before Muffie gave him his job. Now she knew that the boy hadn’t been alone at his last moment and that Jamie had tried to be a friend to him, had known him well enough to say the kid was fucking agile, he wouldn’t fall.
What if he’d been pushed? Was she looking for a murder? The idea was so frightening, it cleared her doubts about the psychic work. The truth was important.
Mae sat on the bench, took the velvet pouch of stones from her purse, and chose crystals for the journey. For strong protection—turquoise and aventurine. For clairvoyance—charoite and amethyst.
Setting the intention to see the story of what happened to Dusty, she closed her eyes and slowed her breath, tuning into the energy from the feather. As her mind began to shift into its altered state, the fear of seeing someone die rose in Mae’s chest, but the tunnel
took her.
The scene that opened wasn’t the river bed under the bridge, but a street downtown near the Plaza, outside a restaurant at night. People walking past wore coats or sweaters. Jamie, on crutches and heavier than in her first view of his past, up around two hundred pounds or more, came out of the restaurant with Lisa, the elegant blonde girlfriend from that earlier vision. She was dressed up, in a sleek blue dress, high heels, and a soft shawl, while he wore jeans and a sweater. They didn’t hold hands or look at each other. She carried her purse in one hand and a paper box, the remains of a restaurant meal, in her other hand.
For a couple on a date, they seemed distant. Not speaking. Mae wondered about Jamie’s weight. From being disabled by the hip surgery, or from depression? Probably both. The relationship looked to be in its last stages, the broken togetherness Mae knew all too well. She guessed they were still trying to save it, trying to have a romantic evening, and not succeeding.
An ululating war whoop sounded, and a thin, pale youth of about fifteen, with flying dark curls under a black Western hat, zigzagged at Olympic-sprint speed from across the street, snatched the leftovers from Lisa’s hand, and dashed away with another whoop. She gasped, looked at her purse, and felt Jamie’s back pocket for his wallet.
“You think you’re bloody Geronimo?” Jamie shouted after the thief, and the boy let out one more whoop as he turned the corner. Other pedestrians glanced around at Jamie, not at the running boy. It had happened so fast, no one else detected that the boy had even taken anything.
“Jeezus. You all right?” Jamie asked Lisa. “Sorry I can’t run after him.”
“It’s only leftovers.”
“Yeah. Just the male urges, y’know? Illusion of protecting you, that crap.”
They moved off in the opposite direction from the thief’s escape. “Did you smell him?” Lisa asked. “He’s probably homeless.”