TWENTY-FIVE
Storefront Psychic
The entire meatball goes into her mouth.
"I'm still amazed," Louis says, watching her with a look on his face like he's watching a boa constrictor eat the neighbor's cat.
Around bulging hamster cheeks, Miriam asks, "Whuh?"
"The way you eat. I've seen it every day now, but every time, it's a unique experience."
"Mm," she mumbles, forcing the knot of meatball goodness down her throat. "Nothing wrong with a girl who enjoys eating a bad-ass plate of spaghetti, sir."
Louis blinks. "Except it's ten o'clock in the morning."
"Not my fault this diner serves the whole menu all day."
"How do you stay so thin?"
She smirks, reaching across and taking his hand. "Looking for beauty tips?"
He doesn't pull away, but he doesn't look comfortable, either. Ever since that night in the motor lodge, he's been unsure. Hovering at her edges. He wants her. But he's afraid of something. Or maybe, she wonders, is she the one who's afraid? And he just senses it?
They haven't done it yet. The deed. The horizontal mambo. The King Kong climbing the Empire State Building. Miriam's not sure why. She almost banged his brains out before. Why not now? It's her way. It's what she does.
Louis is different. Or maybe she's different. Any time it crosses her mind, she pushes it back out. She's afraid that examining the experiment will somehow ruin it. As if that makes any sense.
"I have the metabolism of a coked-up jackrabbit," she explains. "Always have. I can eat whatever I want, whenever I want, and my body burns through it like tinder."
"Some women would kill to be you."
"Some women are stupid donkeys."
He laughs. "Okay, then."
That right there is a moment she enjoys, a moment worth embracing. Most men in her life – hell, most anybody in her life – would take a combative sentiment like that and throw their own right back at her. And thus, a spiteful badminton match would ensue, each sharply phrased comment whipping back and forth like a shuttlecock aimed at someone's eye. Louis, he just takes it. He smiles. He laughs. He doesn't feed her energy. He's got some kind of placating Tai Chi, some Zen master redirection of her aggro spirit – and as a result, that spirit does not grow into a meaner beast but dissipates into naught but steam.
Miriam resists the urge to burp, quashing it behind a fist. She pushes the plate aside and grins. "So, where we headed to next, Big Poppa? And, actually, where the hell are we even at? I haven't exactly been paying attention."
They have been on the road now for a week and a day. A haul from North Carolina to Maryland (shipping paint cans), a haul from Maryland to Delaware (hoity-toity furniture), and now a haul from Delaware (paint again) to somewhere in… Ohio? This has to be Ohio. Flat. Blah. Trees. Highway. Meh.
"Blanchester, Ohio," he says, getting out a pocket map and unfolding it across the table. He points to it on the map. "Maybe forty, fifty miles from Cincinnati."
"Blaaaanchester," she says, stretching it out like a zombie with a mouth filled with clotting brains. "Straight outta Blanchester, crazy emmer-effer named Chester the Molester."
"You're very strange."
"Get used to it, big guy. That's me, dropping science." She reaches across the table and kisses him. They haven't made the beast with two backs yet, no – but the kisses. She's been giving the kisses. It isn't like her. Usually, she doesn't like kissing the men she meets on the road. They push their slug-like tongues into her mouth, and her only wish is to bite the damn things off at the roots.
"Your science tastes sweet."
"I got an A-plus-plus in human anatomy and sexuality."
As she pulls away from him, Miriam looks out the window. Across the street from the diner, a pickup truck sits parked. Innocuous, nothing about it pinging her radar – but then the driver returns to his truck and drives off.
Behind the truck? Miriam sees neon glowing in the window.
Psychic. Palms Read. Tarot Readings.
Louis peels off a couple bills and tosses down a generous tip – but Miriam just stares. She's thought about doing this for a long time, but she's never had the guts.
"Wait here," she says and stands up.
"Ladies' room?"
She shakes her head. "Nope. Psychic next door. I've always wanted to try it."
"I'll come with."
"No – you stay here. This is… private."
She can see his eyes scanning her, trying to put the pieces together. He's been periodically working away at the Miriam Puzzle the same way someone might come back to look at the Magic Eye poster to see if the image will finally resolve and reveal itself. Like usual, he gives up. No dolphins or sailboats to be seen in the chaos and noise. Not yet.
"Fair enough," he says, and while he's got one of his several envelopes of cash in-hand (like Ashley suspected, Louis has several envelopes stashed around the truck – his "life savings," he told her), he peels off three twenties into her palm. "At least let me pay for it."
Miriam can't lie to herself. The money feels like it's about to burn off her fingers, like it's wet with blood. She looks down at it, and for a second instead of seeing Andrew Jackson's ugly mug on the bill, she sees Louis, his eyes torn out, black Xs inked across the sockets.
She doesn't say anything.
She offers a wan smile.
Then exits.
Miriam knows what to expect, and this isn't it. She expects New Age foofaraw and pseudo-occult frippery: the crystals, the purple fringe, the chimes, the incense that irritates the eye, a fat cat lounging on a pillow. What she gets is fluorescent lighting in a shop for knitting aficionados (knit-wits, Miriam thinks). Brown shelves holding afghans, baby hats, bundles of yarn. And no cat. Instead a fat-bellied beagle lies snoozing under a table. He looks gassy.
And the woman who sits at that table is less "Gypsy scammer" and more "notary public." Hell, she looks like the head of a church bake sale. Powder blue cardigan. Poof of red hair. Reading glasses over the bridge of her nose.
"Okay, what the fuck?" is the first thing Miriam says.
The woman gives her a droll, dry look. "May I help you?"
"I… thought I was walking into the Psychics-R-Us store. Sorry." She turns to leave.
"I'm the psychic," the woman says. "My name is Miss Nancy."
"Miss Nancy the knitting psychic?"
"I do knit and crochet, yes. A lady has to make money however she can."
Miriam shrugs. "Scream it so the cheap seats can hear, sister. Do I sit?"
"Sit. Please."
Miriam does. She drums her fingers on the table. "So, now what? What happens? How much will this scam cost me?"
"The fee is forty dollars, but I assure you, this is not a scam." The woman's voice is a bit gravely. She smokes, or used to, Miriam thinks, and it only makes her itch for a cigarette – her smoke breaks have been few and far between since she started riding with Louis.
"Trust me, it's a fucking scam."
"Don't use that kind of language with me."
Miriam hears her mother's voice in there, somewhere. She nods. "Sorry."
"It's no scam, it's no sham. The psychic dimension is a real one."
"I know it is."
"Do you?"
"I'm psychic. Shouldn't you have known that?"
The woman clucks her tongue. "If you were a true psychic, you'd know it doesn't work that way and is rarely so simple."
"Well-played, Miss Nancy. Well-played. Fine, forty bucks it is." Miriam slides two twenties across the table. "And maybe if you're really good, I'll buy a knit cap or an ashtray cozy."
Miss Nancy takes the money, and in something of a surprise, tucks it into her cardigan, under her collar – essentially into her cleavage.
"What will it be, then? Tarot? Want your palm read? I read tea leaves."
"I usually just read the bottom of a shot glass. Out of those choices, I'll take none of the above, thanks."
Miss Nancy looks puzzled.
"I'm psychic," Miriam says. "Remember? C'mon, Nance. You don't need those things. Maybe the end result isn't a scam, but those items kind of are, aren't they? The pretty cards? The secrets supposedly inscribed upon my pretty palm? You just need skin on skin. Just a touch will do. Am I right?"
Miriam's not so sure she's right – she's out on a limb here because she's never actually met someone who claims to be a real psychic. But this is how hers works, and presuming that fate works a certain way, with certain rules, and demands certain things of its endlessly toiling workers, then she figures Miss Nancy is bound by the same proscriptions.
Below the table, the beagle murmurs, then farts.
"True enough," Miss Nancy finally says, her smile a pinched pucker. She opens her hand, and taps it. "Put your hand in mine."
"I want you to be honest about what you see."
"I will, hon. I promise that."
"No fucking – er, no screwing around."
"Just put your hand in mine."
Miriam reaches over and lays her hand into the woman's grip.
Nancy's hand is warm. Miriam feels cold.
They sit for a few moments. Silent. It hits Miriam suddenly – she's not seeing how this woman dies. No vision. No end game. No death. It's like the woman's a rogue agent, disconnected from the flow of fate and time, unbound by –
Nancy's fingers close like a flytrap around Miriam's hand.
"Ow, hey–" Miriam says.
The grip tightens. The woman's neck tenses until the tendons stand out. Miriam tries to pull her hand away but can't. Nancy's eyes snap open. The whites of her eyes start to bloom red from busted blood vessels. Her teeth grind so hard Miriam is afraid they might crack.
Miriam tugs her hand again, but it's like being caught in a vice – and the woman's hand is growing warmer, hotter, like it might burn her.
Blood pops from Nancy's nose. It trickles onto Miriam's hand. Pat, pat, pat. Miriam idly hopes the blood will lubricate the woman's crushing grasp and get her free. No luck.
Nancy begins to moan. Her head rolls and pivots.
Below the table, the beagle starts to bay along with her.
"Christ," Miriam says, genuinely scared. Is this about her? Is the woman having some kind of coincidental aneurysm? She puts her free palm against the table and shoves hard. The table slams into the woman's midsection, and she gasps.
The woman's fingers uncurl. Miriam jerks her hand back. The skin is red, and she can already see the bruises forming.
Nancy looks like shit. Sweat pours from her brow. She licks her lips and pulls out a small handkerchief to mop up the blood. Her eyes have gone totally red.
Miriam speaks in a small voice. "Miss Nancy? Are you okay?"
"What are you?" she hisses.
"What? What do you mean?"
"Something dead is inside you. A deep, black, shriveled thing, and it's crying out like a lost child for its mother. You are the hand of death. You are its mechanism. I can hear the wheels turning, the pulleys pulling." Nancy fishes into her shirt and withdraws the two twenties. She crumples the money into little boulders and pitches them back at Miriam. "Take it. I don't want your blood money. Death is following you, and you've got some monster – some presence – inside your heart and mind. I don't want any part of it. Get out of here."
"Wait," Miriam pleads. "Wait! No, help me, help me understand, tell me how to stop it, tell me how to close it all off and–"
"Get out of here!" Miss Nancy screams. The beagle joins her yowl with his own.
Miriam staggers to her feet and backs toward the door.
"Please–"
"Go."
Her shoulders hit the door, and she backs out, dizzy.
Miriam spends fifteen minutes in a small alley by a dry cleaner's joint just a minute's walk from the psychic. She smokes. She trembles. Her mind wanders.
Then she composes herself and heads back to the diner.
"She tell you your future?" Louis asks.
Miriam offers a fake smile. "Total scam. She had nothing to tell me I didn't already know. Ready to hit the bricks?"