Chapter 18
Eighteen
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” I snatch the rabbit’s foot key chain from the ignition.
“Reese Conway,” Mom gasps. “Don’t talk like that.”
“I could talk worse.” I glare from the flickering neon sign to her. “Psychic Sylvia? What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I had brain surgery.”
“And I’ll be filing a malpractice suit on the grounds of them leaving the part responsible for eating your logic.”
“We’re here for you.”
I could scream. “Funny since I don’t recall asking to come here.”
Her eyes narrow beneath her heart-shaped glasses. “You were confused last night, and I can tell when you talk about Gavin you—”
“Gavin?” I sound as incredulous as I feel. “That was me being tired. And bored.”
“Liar.”
“I am not a liar,” I insist. “And I don’t plan on seeing him again.” Mostly because I’m going to avoid him. “He’s nothing!”
Sure, maybe it took me all night to come to that conclusion, but around dawn, staring into Joshua Jackson’s eyes on my ceiling, I finally did.
I’m self-aware enough to know I was flirting with Gavin at the bar.
Something in the neon lights maybe made me feel what some might consider attraction toward him.
But it was a situational and momentary lapse.
It was the atmosphere. The familiarity of the dance we were dancing.
The sting of rejection from the size of Leland’s nose.
But mostly, it was me having the most downtime I’ve had in over two decades and not knowing what else to do. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop, and all that jazz. He was talking to me; I had nothing else to do but talk back. He was leaning in; what else is a bored girl to do but lean back?
But that all changes next week.
I’ll be working at the vineyard.
One of the donors is in real estate and has an open house next weekend.
The doctor with the dating profile finally responded with a quick Will you be disappointed if I say family medicine?
It took me almost a half an hour to figure out what to write in response, finally landing on Tell me something else about you. It’s lame, but I didn’t know what else to say. I don’t really want to know this guy, but I can’t outright ask him if he’s going to give me shady sperm either.
My boredom won’t be an issue.
Neither will Gavin.
There will be no more bars.
There will be no more distractions.
I will make it through these next months then haul ass back to Chicago.
Which is why when I woke up this morning and had a text from Gavin that said Do you wish you would have stayed as much as I do? I didn’t respond.
Because I don’t.
Mom says, “We’ll see about that,” and jerks the handle to open the car door.
Faster than she can move, I’m at her side, forcing a walker into her hands and making her scowl. With her hair down and a floral scarf in shades of pinks and reds around her head, she looks like she always does.
Except with a walker.
Which makes her miserable enough it warms my cold heart.
We’re barely through the beaded curtains when I’m fully assaulted by machine-generated smoke and incense. It smells like a church filled with hippies.
Sylvia is covered in beads and gemstones and a tent-sized blue dress with gold embellishments. She stands behind a counter, humming as she takes a bite of what appears to be a mayo-only sandwich. Sick.
At the sight of my mother, she clicks the tips of her too-pointy fingernails together wildly.
“Iris!” she cries, wiping white goo from the corners of her mouth. “I had a feeling you’d be here today. It was in the moon and the stars and the air, I swear it. I just knew you’d be ready to see me.”
“You always do,” Mom coos.
Sylvia circles the counter and hugs my mom gently before guiding her to a chair. They talk about Mom’s surgery—which Sylvia predicted would go well—and recovery. Meanwhile, I assess the looney bin around me. Tarot cards. Egyptian eyes. Beads. A flickering neon sign advertising Spirit Guide.
Kill me.
“We’re here for Reese,” Mom explains. “You remember her?”
“Ahh, yes.” Sylvia pets her own wild mane of red hair with both hands.
I met her once at the antique store and was hopeful it would be the only time. How tragic I was wrong.
“The one who can’t stop working,” she says. She and my mom exchange high-browed looks. “I remember.”
I smile as fake as she is. “So happy to see you again, Sylvia.”
She circles me with slow steps, sweeping her eyes up and down my body.
“My Cubs T-shirt reveal something about my future?” I ask dryly. “Or maybe theirs? Ohh. Is someone bringing another billy goat into Wrigley?”
“Hear that, Sylvia?” Mom chirps, pointing an annoyed finger at me. “That’s the problem right there. Her sarcasm needs to be taken out back and shot. And she’s getting pregnant for work. By a sperm donor.” She glares at me. “Who she’s stalking.”
I blow out the biggest, loudest breath of my life. “That is not true.” To Sylvia—like I owe her a damn thing—I say, “She’s exaggerating. The donor I’m meeting next weekend is in real estate and having a public open house.” I smile sweetly. “Happy now? No stalking required.”
“The question is,” Sylvia says with a purse of her lips, “are you happy now?”
“I’ll be a lot happier once I’m not getting lung cancer from your foul-smelling incense.”
Sylvia’s body jolts.
“Whoa!” She closes her eyes and hovers her hands just inches from my body.
She’s eerily still before going berserk.
“I’m getting something here. I’m getting something!
” She sways, really trying to sell it. “I see . . .” She opens one eye then snaps it closed.
There must be six pounds of glitter on her eyelids.
“A woman. Who has found herself lost. Overworked. In need of—” She shimmies.
“Guidance.” Fuck me. “But is struggling to take it. And . . .” She makes a drawn out ehhhh sound.
“Needs to recalibrate her energy. And. And.” She points her finger straight into the air and cocks her chin. “Learn to relinquish control.”
She opens her eyes, clasps her hands, and smiles proud.
My mother, that stupid, stupid woman, claps. “That’s exactly what I told her, Sylvia. Isn’t that what I said last night, Reese?”
“What I heard was you asking me to make you a ward of the state, Mother.”
“Tell her what she needs to do, Sylvia,” Mom says. “You see how stubborn she is. Won’t listen to a word I say. Just like Rue was.”
I scoff. “It’s called being practical, ever heard of it?”
My mom looks at Sylvia with a you see what I’m saying look.
Abruptly, Sylvia takes my hand in hers; they’re clammy. She drags the fingernail of her index finger down my forearm then pokes the middle of my palm, looking me dead in the eyes. “The seekers of control are the most ignorant of all. The solution is in plain sight, but only if you’re looking.”
My mom brings a hand to her mouth, utterly awestruck.
“Okay.” I pry my hand free. “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind. We have to go. Thanks for—” I look around this New Age-painted circle of hell. The crystals. The bullshit. “The entertainment.”
“Of course,” Sylvia says with a wide smile. She slips behind the counter and takes a bite of her abandoned sandwich. “That’ll be one-fifty even.”
My eyes narrow. “What?”
Mom elbows me. “That’s the friends and family discount, Reese,” she explains. “I don’t have my purse. I’ll wait in the car while you pay.”
“Pay for what?”
“For what?” Mom laughs like I’ve told a joke. “She just solved all your problems.” She waves at Sylvia. “Thanks, Syl.”
My mom exits the building—without the walker—and I slap my credit card down and glare at Syl. “I hate you.”
She grins and swipes the card, completely unbothered as mayonnaise once again clings to the corners of her mouth. “I knew you were going to say that.”