Chapter 16
Chapter 16
The next morning—strong coffee running through my veins—I do what I said I’d never do again. I drive up the mountain to Misty’s bungalow, holding my breath the whole way. I swear that by the time I reach her driveway, I’ll either asphyxiate or pee my pants.
Possibly both.
As per her instructions, I’ve tried her exercises, a bizarre series of puzzles that are supposed to unblock me. I have no idea whether they’re working.
I went so far as to Google them on my now-fixed computer to see if they’re even legit. But I couldn’t find anything about them on the Internet. Not surprising. And while it should make me even more skeptical—and I’m already pretty damned skeptical—it only adds to Misty’s mystique. And my deep-rooted desire to get to the truth, even if it means driving straight up a mountain for some Kabuki theater.
As I pull into Misty’s driveway, my cotton shirt is sticking to my back, and my sweat has turned cold. But I’m here now; the worst is over. I gather up my purse and put on my coat, struggling with getting it on in the tight confines of my car. When I left the cabin, it was forty-two degrees.
I’m just about to exit the car when I get a text from Austin. My initial instinct is to ignore it. It’s probably another plea for me to give up Christmas at the cabin. Why give myself something to get worked up over? Something more to “block me.” But despite myself, I take a peek anyway.
Chelsea,
No one has heard from you since the last time we talked, and we continue to worry about you. Ronnie says you haven’t been in touch with her in days. She says you’re not responding to any of her emails, texts, or phone calls. I’m not trying to pressure you. If you need a break after everything that you’ve been through that’s understandable. I know how badly you were in need of a vacation (you work too hard) and if this is your way of checking out, I get it. I really do. But please drop her a quick line (or me for that matter) to let us know that everything is okay.
Yours,
Austin
I don’t know why he sends texts as if they’re letters. But for as long as I’ve known him, he writes them formally that way. Like he’s an old man.
I quickly tap out a message to Ronnie.
Austin says you’ve been trying to reach me. My email wasn’t working for a while, but I’ve since had it fixed. Hopefully by now you’ve received the email I sent you this morning. I don’t know why we haven’t been able to reach each other by phone. I’ve tried you repeatedly but you don’t answer. I’m leaving tonight to make my flight to Albuquerque in the morning. We’ll touch base then. All is well on my end. Hope the same for you.
I hit the send button and get out of the car, taking the stairs to Misty’s front porch. She opens the door before I can knock.
“Come in.” She moves aside.
I’m hit with a rush of warm air. As we enter the living room, I see she has a big fire going. There’s a plate of cheese and crackers on the burlwood table and a carafe of wine, like we’re having a picnic. It was only about an hour ago that I had breakfast.
“This is lovely,” I say.
“Did you do the exercises?”
“Yes. But I don’t understand. How is doing a word puzzle going to unblock me?”
“It’s not the puzzle. It’s the words. We’ll see if it makes a difference. Is there anything to report?”
“Like what?” The question throws me. It’s almost as if she knows all the things that have happened since I left here five days ago, and she’s testing me.
“Like anything illuminating or confusing or just plain wonderful.”
Yes, to all of the above.
“There was this one thing. A police officer pulled me over the other night.” This is how I start, because I’m not sure I want to get into the others. I especially don’t want to tell her about Knox’s kiss, because it’s still too fresh, too new, too wonderful. And I want to preserve it all for myself. “The cop said I was weaving, which I wasn’t. In any event, he kept referencing my father. Stuff like ‘Your daddy taught you better, girl.’ And ‘You of all people should know better.’ It was as if he knew my late father was a cop, like he was intimately familiar with my family. When he sent me on my way, he told me to say hello to my father for him, which is impossible, because my father is deceased. Dead. Besides, there’s no way he could possibly know my father.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“Hmm. What do you think?” Misty asks.
“I think it was probably a case of mistaken identity. But it was . . . eerie just the same.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I suppose if I believed in the . . . supernatural”—I hesitate to use the word woo-woo as not to offend her—”it would be a message of some sort, foreshadowing.”
“As far as the supernatural , you’re here, aren’t you?” She fills two glasses with a heavy pour of wine and hands me one. It’s only ten. I’m starting to think Misty might have a drinking problem.
“Foreshadowing of what?” she wants to know.
“Aren’t you supposed to tell me?” I can analyze myself till the cows come home; I don’t need Misty for that.
She takes both my hands and closes her eyes, like she did the last two times, then does her concentration thing. Whether it’s real or not . . . well, who can say?
“I’m seeing a gas station,” she says, pushing her face forward like she’s there. Like she’s at the gas station. “The one at the top of Cascade Road, not far from here. You’re anxious.” Her eyes pop open. “I wasn’t aware you were afraid of heights.”
I nod, stunned. I never told her that.
She closes her eyes again. “He’s there with you. Lights. I see shining lights. You’re walking.” She shakes her head. “Give me a second. I’ve lost it. Wait, wait, it’s back. He calls you by name.”
“He did. But so what? He saw my license. My name is printed right there on the front.”
Misty ignores me and continues to remain in her trancelike state or whatever she’s doing. “The man, the police officer. He knows your father. Christopher. Is that the officer’s name?”
“No, it was something that started with a J. J. Toomey.” I remember, because I looked at the brass plate on his uniform. “My father’s name is Christopher. Chris. He went by Chris.”
“Ahh. Well, they know each other. Or knew.”
“How?” What are the chances that a cop in Ghost would know my late father, a former LAPD sergeant?
“I don’t know,” Misty says. She releases my hands and opens her eyes.
“If he knew my father, knew he was dead, why would he tell me to pass on my regards to him? It seems cruel, or at the very least, insensitive.” I’m still not buying it.
“He may not know that your father died.” She passes me the cheese platter, but who can eat at a time like this?
“I still believe it was a case of mistaken identity,” I say. “He thought I was a different Chelsea and mistook my dead father for the other Chelsea’s living one.”
“Perhaps.” But she’s just appeasing me, I can see it in her eyes, in her body language.
Yet, there’s the whole Christopher thing to work out. How would Misty know my father’s name, other than to have done a full vetting of me beforehand? Which is highly possible, but also highly unlikely.
“Shall we move on?” she says.
“Yes, let’s do Lolly now.” Because that’s what I really came for.
Misty swirls her wineglass and takes a sip. “I’ll see how far I get. But your sister is a puzzler. You, on the other hand, have opened up some. It’s the exercises. I’m sure of it.”
I’m not, but it won’t help my cause to contradict her, so I flash a wan smile.
She sees right through it, because she shakes her head. “I can tell you think so, too. Give me a little time to recuperate before we start in on your sister. Unfortunately, I’m not a machine.”
She gets up and begins doing these weird squats in the middle of the living room. Then ballet pliés. They’re rather good. Graceful.
“Did you used to be a dancer?” I ask.
“Not professionally. But I took a lot of classes.”
It’s then that I notice her flowy, stretchy yoga pants. For reasons I can’t pin down, they look familiar, like I’ve seen the print—a succession of dog paws—a dozen times before. Which is strange, because it’s not at all a common pattern.
“Where did you get those?” I point to her pants.
“I made them. Why?”
“They’re lovely. Really different.”
“I can make you a pair if you like.”
I don’t have a ready response. Really, as cheerful as the print is, I would have no place to wear something like that. But I don’t want to hurt Misty’s feelings. She’s obviously proud of the pants, and she probably put a lot of work into making them.
“Then they wouldn’t be one of a kind,” I say.
“No, that’s true, they wouldn’t be.”
I can see she’s giving her offer second thoughts. “I can make you a different pair.”
“That’s very generous of you. Thank you.”
“Okay, let’s try this again.” She achieves the fifth position, arms en haut, and I’m unsure if she’s talking about ballet or Lolly.
Which is when she sits down across from me again and does her thing of holding my hands and closing her eyes. I immediately flash to Knox and his comment about crystal balls, about the desire to conquer our present fears by seeing the future. By knowing that whatever bad thing is happening now, there’s proof of something great right around the corner.
And then I realize I’ve been going about this all wrong. That I have been asking for the answers to the wrong questions.
“Never mind about Lolly,” I say. “What’s my future?”
Misty sighs, long and hard. Apparently, it’s a standard request, the garage band’s equivalent of “Sweet Home Alabama” for psychics. “You sure you want to do this? You may not like what I see.”
“Yes, I’m sure.” Whatever she sees can’t be worse than losing my parents at the tender age of twelve or my husband’s love at the fragile age of thirty-six or having a sister who barely speaks to me, lest I forget getting hit by a cable car.
Misty lets go of my hands and rises to her feet. “First, you’ll have to sign a legal waiver.” She makes her way across the room to a chest of drawers, and after some searching, finds what she’s looking for and hands it to me with a Mont Blanc pen. “Right there at the bottom.”
I skim the contract. Basically, it’s a promissory note not to sue. People are so litigious these days. I sign with a flourish.
Chelsea Knight of sound mind and sound body herby gives Misty (no last name) express permission to tell me my future.
Though I think for the waiver to be truly legal, it needs to be notarized.
Satisfied, Misty carefully slips the signed contract back inside the drawer, lights a circle of tea candles, and dims a few lights. I can’t tell if it’s for ambiance or part of the ritual.
Returning to her usual position, she says, “This is your last chance to back out.”
“I’m good.”
“That’s what you say now.” It should sound ominous, but I take it with a grain of salt.
I’m ready to see it, to see my future.
She bobs her head, silently acquiescing, then slips off into the land of the fortune tellers. “You’re all in white,” she says. “A wedding gown, maybe. No, no, it’s a shroud. Wait a minute, I see both. Hmm.”
“What? Is it bad? What does the white shroud mean?” I don’t like the sound of it. I like the wedding gown better.
“I’m not sure. It’s not always a literal translation; often it’s a symbol for something else. Then again, sometimes a pickle is just a pickle.” She laughs, which seems in bad taste, since a white shroud to me is synonymous with death.
“Am I going to die?”
“We’re all going to die, sweetie.”
“Like soon. Is that what you’re seeing?”
“Shush.” She’s rocking back and forth, humming. “There’s a man, a handsome man. He’s by your side, he’s crying.”
“Who is he? Knox? Austin?”
“A tall man. Older. Your past. No, your future. Wait, there’s two of them. Two men. No wait, three. The man in the tower, the same one on the street.”
“What tower?”
“Is his name Mark?”
Oh, for goodness sake, could she please commit to at least one thing? And who the hell is Mark? “There is no Mark in my life.”
“They’re besides themselves with grief.”
“Why are they grieving?”
“They love you. Yes, that’s coming across strongly. I can feel it in the room. They’re pleading with you. They want you back.”
“Austin? Is it Austin?”
“Who’s Austin?”
“My ex-husband?” I already told her this the last time. And she already went through the same song and dance about the three men. And yet, I’m hanging on her every word.
“I don’t know,” she says. “The older one feels more like a relative.”
“That doesn’t make sense. Why would a relative want me back?”
“Your father, maybe. You said his name is Christopher, right?”
“Right. Chris. Is it him?”
“I don’t know. I feel his presence, but the older man . . . Ugh. It’s frenetic. There’s a lot happening around you. A lot to wade through. So many people.”
“What about Knox? Do you see him, too?”
“Who’s Knox?”
“My handyman,” is all I say, because I don’t know what he is, only that I’m falling for him.
“I see him,” she says. “Plaid tie. No, it’s a plaid shirt. He doesn’t want you to leave. He’s holding on, but you’re slipping away from him. You won’t take the jump. Wait . . . wait. Dammit!”
“What? What do you see?”
“I’m losing it. Everything has gone dark.” Misty opens her eyes. “It was there, right in front of me, and then it disappeared, like a blank screen. We’ll have to try again in the morning.”
“But I can’t, I’m leaving town. Can’t we rest for a little while and do it again, like in an hour?”
“I’m sorry, I have another appointment. Your time is up.”
“Seriously? It seems like we were making excellent progress. What about after your appointment? I can leave later, extend my time here.”
“I’m booked solid today. I have time next week. Come back then.”
Before I know it, she’s pushing me toward the door. I’m not a paranoid person, but I’m getting the sense that Misty may have seen something she doesn’t want to share with me. Something catastrophic.
I go over everything she said the whole way down the mountain, dissecting each one of her visions. I am so lost in my head, I forget my fear of heights and make it to the flats without hyperventilating. A small blessing. But I’m no further ahead than I was when I started. In fact, I’m more confused than ever.
So instead of focusing on myself, I swing by Flower Power. It’s on my way out of town, and I’ve compiled a list of local marriage counselors for Sadie. I’ve checked out their credentials, and they’re all top-notch.
I surreptitiously slide the list to Sadie when Ginger isn’t looking.
“When will you be back?” Sadie says.
“Hopefully next weekend.” But I know it’s only wishful thinking. As soon as I return to work, it will suck me in and spin me out until I’m completely consumed by it again.
“We’ll miss you for happy hour,” Ginger says. “Can’t you work remotely? It seems like that’s what everyone is doing nowadays.”
“I need to be based in San Francisco, near an airport.” My stomach fills with dread. For the first time, I’m not so wowed by the idea of traipsing across the country, giving my spiels to sold-out rooms. It’s probably just the accident. Once I get in the groove again, I’ll remember all the reasons I loved it so much.
I move in to hug both women goodbye. In the short time we’ve been acquainted, it feels like I’ve known them my whole life. And like they know me, a different me than the one I really am, the me I wish I was.
“Let us know as soon as you’re up again,” Sadie says, and pushes a bouquet of pink stargazer lilies into my hand. “For the ride to the city. They’ll make your car smell good.”
She’s not kidding. The flowers are incredibly fragrant, like perfume.
On my way to the car, I see Katie on Main Street, sitting on a bench, eating a sandwich. I wave and cross over.
“I heard you’re going back to the city today,” she says, and makes room for me on the bench.
“Yep. I’ll be back, though. Next weekend or the weekend after.”
“We’ll miss you at happy hour.” She wraps up the rest of her sandwich and sticks it in her backpack. “I’ve decided to go back to school.”
“Really? That’s great.” I know Knox will be happy to hear the news, if he hasn’t already. “Something for urban planning?”
“Nah, urban planning sounded interesting in the beginning, but I quickly figured out it wasn’t for me. I’ve decided to teach high school. I’m going back to school for a teaching credential. Then I’ll see if I can get a gig around here.”
“Congratulations. Do you know where you’re going yet?”
“I’ve applied to both UC Davis and Sacramento State. We’ll see,” she says.
“Well, I think it’s wonderful, Katie.”
“Knox about shit his pants when I told him. To tell you the truth, it was the last straw for him when my car died on me and he picked up the tab for a new one.”
“He’s just worried about you, Katie. He loves you and wants to know that you’re taken care of.”
“Yeah, the whole big sibling thing. I get it.”
We spend a few more minutes talking about her plans for the future, how she wants to get a new place instead of the crappy studio she’s renting, and how it won’t be the same without me popping into the hotel when she’s on bartending duty.
“Yeah,” I say, “I’ll miss it, too.” But instead of dwelling on how sad it makes me, I hug Katie goodbye and promise to stop in at the bar the next time I’m here.
On the drive home, I let Katie’s words sink in— the whole big sibling thing —and reflect on my relationship with Lolly. It’s no secret that I wasn’t there for her. After the situation with my parents, I wasn’t even there for myself.
My mourning period lasted until I went away to boarding school in Santa Barbara. And even then, what transpired in our house in Porter Ranch never really went away. There are still times when a backfiring car or an explosion of fireworks can instantly transport me back to that day. To the gunshots, the chilling sound of sirens, and the swirl of chaos only found at a crime scene.
In certain ways, leaving Uncle Sylvester and Lolly was my salvation. Being in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people allowed me to reinvent my tragic history, or at least hide from it. And I took it, grabbed it with both hands, never stopping to consider that I was Lolly’s sole support system. While Uncle Sylvester loved and provided for us, he was mostly an absentee guardian. Besides, he wasn’t a survivor of a murder-suicide in the same way that we were. What should’ve bonded Lolly and me, tore us apart.
I remember one of my first cases, a couple who lost a child to crib death. It was one of those horrific, tragic, unexplained deaths that’s a parent’s worst nightmare. They came to see me because the death of their baby had understandably destroyed them. It had also destroyed their marriage.
For months, we worked on trying to separate their grief from the way they felt about each other. But no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t get back to where they started. The death of their baby had indelibly changed them. They were no longer the same people they were when they fell in love. They were no longer compatible.
I’m not saying that’s what happened with Lolly and me. What I’m saying is that I ran away from the past, and anyone who reminded me of it, instead of confronting it head on.
And look where that got me.