Soul Loss Page 17

Alan said, “She was in the Muffie Blanchette film they made in T or C, challenging Muffie on her psychic readings, but Mae was only on for about a minute.”

  Bernadette worked on her computer again. “I think we’re safe. She used another name as a psychic and healer, to keep it separate from her regular work. And like I said, she hasn’t been doing that kind of work since she moved out here for college.”

  “In addition to coming up to see Jamie,” Stan said, “she could say she’s doing an independent study on alternative healing, and her advisor suggested she work with Bernadette and me. It would give her a reason to interview practitioners. She could try to heal them during the research.”

  Jamie had stopped eating, drinking, or fidgeting, and stared at Bernadette.

  “That could work.” Bernadette turned the laptop to face Kate once more. “This is all that comes up under Mae Martin. If you click on the other window, you’ll see what I got for the name she used as a psychic, Breda Outlaw.”

  The first page showed the staff of the fitness center at College of the Rio Grande. Jamie’s sweet-faced, athletic girlfriend looked too normal for him—which also meant she didn’t look like a stereotypical psychic. That was in her favor.

  The other window opened on old blog posts on the web site for the Healing Balance Store in Virginia Beach. There were no pictures, only testimonials. Breda could detect illness in your body. Breda could heal emotional obstacles. Breda could find your lost pets. Breda could see what had happened in your past that led to your present problems. That last one looked like a useful skill for the psychic they would hire.

  “She’s got a lot to lose if she does this and gets the plague,” Kate said.

  Bernadette took the laptop back and typed. “Dahlia had to probe to see if you were real, and has only gone after famous people. I think we can assume she can’t detect power. As long as Dahlia’s the only vector, Mae should be safe if she can stay undercover.”

  Jamie leaned in, both hands on the table. “Are you asking her now?”

  “I already did. I’m making notes on the contract. I’ll send it to Kate to finish.”

  “Fuck—don’t I get any say in this?” His voice got louder, his speech faster. “I’m on the fucking board, and you’re not. I care more what happens to Mae than to the bloody fucking fair.”

  His explosion stung Kate like a gust of dirt-flying wind. “Bernadette is doing your work for you. You should thank her, not yell at her.”

  “She’s doing my work because I fucking hate it and I’m no good at it.”

  “Then why did you agree to do it?”

  He swallowed a gulp of beer and slammed the mug down. “Because you intimidate the fucking crap out of me.”

  The group fell silent. Breaking the uneasy stillness, Addie repeated Jamie’s line, imitating his delivery by thumping her mug, and gave him a tight-lipped, bug-eyed stare.

  After a sullen pause, Jamie made the same face back at her until they both let go and guffawed.

  He apologized to Bernadette and to Kate, adding, “I’m doing the fair work to keep Jill out of it. You know that.”

  “I don’t know that you should.” Kate finished her tea. “I don’t like her either, but she could be the only famous healer left. I’d hate to invite her if she’s Dahlia’s teacher, but she’d draw a crowd. I won’t ask her yet, but I might have to if your girlfriend can’t get this solved in a week. We need deposits. We need advertising. We need a web site with famous names on it.”

  “I got Harold Petersen.”

  “I need famous psychics, too.”

  “Hold off on Jill.”

  “I’ll wait a week.” Kate gave Lobo a command, he stirred, and she backed her chair away from the table. “Thanks for your help, Bernadette. Let me know what Mae says, and if she can start right way. I’ll probably see you soon. I’ll be sign interpreting at the complementary and alternative medicine conference this weekend.”

  “You’ll definitely see me.” Bernadette packed her laptop back into her briefcase. “I’m one of the keynote speakers.”

  Tim stood. “Thanks for the snacks, Mrs. Ellerbee. Great show, Jamie. Have a good evening, everybody. Nice meeting all of you.”

  The group said goodbyes and similar pleasantries to Tim and Kate, who expressed her embarrassed and belated appreciation. She had focused so narrowly on work, she’d ignored everyone but Bernadette.

  To Kate’s dismay, Hilda gazed at the beer pitcher and didn’t move. She’d driven herself there and could stay, but Kate didn’t want her to. If Kate had felt the tug of Jill and Fiona’s wine, what was this beer doing to Hilda, who was at much higher risk for relapse?

  “Hilda?” Kate asked. “You coming with us?”

  The artist shook her head and waved to Kate and Tim to go. She wants us to leave so she can drink. Kate asked again. “You sure?”

  Hilda avoided Kate’s eyes. “Yes.”

  Abruptly, Jamie reached across the table to thrust the remains of the pizza in front of Hilda. “I’m turning this over. You’re my higher power. I need a fucking FA meeting. I’m powerless over the bloody pizza.” He poured beer into his mug and his mother’s, overfilling. Beer flowed onto on the table and dripped onto his pants. Jamie dropped the pitcher. “Agh—Jeezus.” He waved to the waiter. “Sorry. Made a mess.”

  “FA?” Addie asked, backing away from the flood. “Fat’s not exactly anonymous, love.”

  Everyone still at the table cracked up, except for Hilda. “It’s called OA.” She barely got her voice out. “Overeaters Anonymous.”

  “Thanks. Fat Anonymous. Jeezus.” Jamie accepted a towel from the waiter, blotting the table while the blue-haired youth mopped the floor. “Sorry about the spill. Hooroo, Kate, Tim.” His eyes met Kate’s with a sad warmth, open and vulnerable. “Have a good night.”

  Hilda stood to leave with them. Addie smacked Jamie’s hand as he reached to reclaim the pizza.

  “That was a good save,” Tim said as he and Kate escorted Hilda to her car. “Fly ball right into the glove.”

  “More like an out at home plate.” Kate looked up at Hilda. “I’m glad he did it, but—you’re struggling to stay sober and you wanted to stay and hang out with him?”

  Hilda’s pace began to drag. The others had to reduce their speed to stay with her. “You were such a bitch.” Her voice creaked, barely audible. “You make sobriety look bad.”

  Kate put on her brakes. “Don’t blame it on me. You danced with Tim all night and he made sobriety look fun.”

  “But you’re supposed to be my sponsor.”

  “It was a bad night for me. I’m not always like this. Jamie gets on my nerves.”

  “Then why did you break my anonymity to him?”

  “I did no such thing. He figured it out.”

  “How?”

  “Watching you stare at that beer like it was water in the desert, waiting for us to leave.” She began moving again, and Hilda followed her. “He must know other people in recovery. He knew the first two steps.”

  “You don’t think he’s an alcoholic himself, do you?”

  “Hardly. His mother would have nagged him about that if he was, and he wouldn’t have wasted all that beer. No, he’s one of those drinkers we all wished we were. Risky company when you’re craving a drink.” They reached Hilda’s pale gold Lexus. “How did you handle temptation when you still had the angels? Were they your higher power?”

  “Not really.” Hilda unlocked the car but didn’t open the door, gazing at it as if it held some secret. “I didn’t have any temptation.”

  “You never hung out with drinkers before in your sobriety?”

  “No—except for the couple of times I went to Jill’s workshops.”

  “They drink there?”

  “That was a few years back, when she still did those big weekends at hotels. I thought I might meet other people there who had visions like I did, but I didn’t. It was power animal retrieval all day and a lot of drinking all night.”

&nb
sp; “I didn’t know about that. I thought she just had those women’s circles. Kind of exclusive.”

  “She does now.” Hilda opened her car and sat in it sideways, her feet on the pavement. “She changed it after that girl died.”

  Kate had obviously been too drunk to pay attention a few years back. “Someone died?”

  “Alcohol poisoning.”

  “At a spiritual event? That’s awful. Did you know her?”

  “A little bit. She was a silversmith from Cochiti Pueblo. Kandyce Rainbow Kahee. Really quiet, and never drank that I saw. She was that pet of Jill’s I mentioned, sort of a chosen one. It must have shaken Jill pretty badly.”

  Kate rolled her chair over to be closer to Hilda and squeezed her hand. “Were you there when it happened?”

  “No. I’d stopped going weeks before that.”

  “I’m glad you did. That could have been you.”

  Hilda shook her head. “No. I wasn’t tempted. I had the angels.”

  Now the severity of the relapse risk made sense. Hilda had never really been sober. She’d been dependent on the angels, creatively inspired but spiritually intoxicated. “I think I get it. Why you’re struggling now. You haven’t had any practice fighting the urge to drink.”

  “You make a blessing sound like a crutch.” Hilda pulled her feet into the car, dropped her head back against the headrest, and closed her eyes. “It’s not. Jill says that some people need to go through a crisis to manifest power. I was in a crisis when the angels came.”

  “And you’re in one now without them. You need a higher power that can’t leave you.”

  “I need them back.”

  “I don’t think you get to decide that. We’ve got someone to help us, but we don’t even know if she’ll agree to try or if she can do what we need done. What’s your higher power now? Tonight?”

  Dead silence. Tim rubbed Kate’s shoulder. Let go and let God. You can’t change other people. She knew the slogans were true, but she still wanted to hang on and to change and fix Hilda.

  Hilda said finally, with a dry, humorless laugh, “Jill has most of her shaman students ‘fake it ’til they make it.’ She doesn’t call it that, of course, she just says it’s a safer route to power. I guess that’s what I can do for now. But you’d think I’d conduct again. Jill says people in crisis are better conductors.”

  “Conductors? Like a symphony?”

  “Come on.” Hilda looked up. “Tim? Conductors. Like copper. Like water.”

  Tim jingled his keys in his pocket. “Like Dahlia.”

  Kate added, “And Jamie.” She pictured him conducting his audience, an orchestra of hands and feet. He was both kinds of conductor. “But can there really be people with so much power they even affect electricity? It’s not even the same type of energy. And what kind of crisis is either of them having? I don’t see it. Anyway, I don’t think Jill meant electrical conductors. It was probably a spiritual metaphor.”

  Hilda curled a manicured finger around the rim of her steering wheel and let go. “Like the way I conducted the angels.” She sighed, put her keys in the ignition, pulled the door shut and lowered the window. “She claimed Kandy was a conductor, too.”

  “Was she?”

  “I have no idea. She never bragged about having visions or insights the way some people did. She must have had them, though. Jill treated her like she was special.”

  “Like she does with Dahlia now.”

  Hilda nodded.

  Dahlia’s crystal ball reading flooded Kate’s mind again. The Hierophant meant secret knowledge. Jill did power animal retrievals. The white owl even looked like Jill, with her silver-white hair and piercing eyes. The car accident could mean crashing in some other way, but one of Jill’s protégées had died. Did the vision mean Dahlia might, too? “Do you think being Jill’s chosen person somehow killed Kandyce Kahee?”

  “How? She got drunk.”

  “You said she didn’t normally drink, though. Maybe what Jill had her doing drove her to it. I could be out on a limb, but—did anyone lose their power around her?”

  Hilda started her car. “I suppose they could have. I don’t know. One reason I stopped going to those events was because it seemed like nobody had any.” She shifted into reverse and the car inched backward. “Now I don’t. Damn. I had such a good night until we started talking about this. I should have left right after the show.”

  “Wait.”

  Hilda stopped the car. “What?”

  “Do you still feel like drinking?”

  “No. I just feel like shit.”

  “That’s better than drunk. If you get the urge again, call me. Any hour. Okay? I’ll be there for you. Bitchy and grouchy, but I’ll be there.” Hilda managed a sad smile. Kate said, “I’m glad you stayed. You had the idea to hire someone who can heal you.”

  “I hope she will. That’s my higher power for now. Hope.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The fact that the work was difficult and a little risky made it more attractive, not less. Mae felt alive and challenged, the way she used to feel in a softball game against a tough opposing team. She might be out of practice, but she wasn’t incompetent. All she needed to do was to sharpen her focus—and tell Jamie she’d taken the job.

  After a bike ride and a shower, she called him while she walked several blocks uphill to the library. She had to return the Gaia Greene documentary and get books to prepare for her research role. After several rings, Jamie answered with a drowsy noise, sighed, and tried again. “G’day.” Another sigh. “Love ya.”

  She’d tried to give him time to sleep. It was ten o’clock. “You just waking up?”

  “Yeah.” He murmured tenderly, apparently to Gasser, “Time to get up, mate.” A double thud suggested the twenty-pound cat had jumped to the floor. No sound of Jamie walking, but in the background came the unmistakable sound of a long piss. “Weird night last night. Bernadette wanting you to come up and cure the plague. You get my message?”

  “Yes, but I already told Kate I’d do the work.”

  “Bloody hell, you didn’t even ask me?”

  “Sugar, we don’t ... We don’t need to ...” Mae sidestepped a swarm of big black ants that had taken over a crumbly patch of the sidewalk. “To get permission. I didn’t think you’d be like that.”

  “Like what? Fuck. I’m asking you to talk with me, that’s all.” The sound quality changed, the acoustics of another room. Gasser began to mew. “We’re us now.”

  Were they? She supposed they were, or might be soon. It would take getting used to. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I should think like an us. But what kind of healer would I be if I turned this down? Doctors and nurses help sick people. They do what they can to protect themselves, but they don’t say no.”

  Noises told her he was in the kitchen. Cat food hitting a bowl. Water running. “Can we at least talk about it?”

  “Of course we can talk. I’ll get up there later today. When are you free?”

  “Jeezus. Today?” Pages rustled. “Fuck ... I’ve got yoga at eleven, probably shouldn’t be eating.” Chewing sounds. “Dr. G at twelve thirty. Got to talk about you, y’know.” A snort-laugh. “Again. Am I ready for intimacy and commitment, all that crap. I am, by the way. Just got to sell him on it. Music in Medicine in Albuquerque.” He seemed to be reading a list. “Interview about it on KUNM—you should listen. Gig in Old Town tonight ... Wish I wasn’t so booked. I left Sunday clear for you. Saturday’s free except for a show here in Santa Fe with Zambethalia.” This was a group he sometimes played with. “Even did a rehearsal yesterday. Thought I was fucking organized.”

  “You are. I’m the one that sprang something on you.”

  “Maybe—you could come to the show in Albuquerque tonight. Come home with me.”

  That was bold. Come home with me. Bold, or a blunder. She smiled. “You’ll be tired after a day like that. I’ll catch the show in Santa Fe.”

  A long pause. The coffee grinder whirred. “You su
re you should do that work?”

  “Jamie—I just told you—”

  “What if Naomi gets hold of Lily and tells her about having you look for her? Or Harold does? She’ll know about you.”

  Mae turned the corner onto Third Street and detoured around the turquoise-and-cream civic center with its Delmas Howe flower murals, extending the walk while she finished talking. “Harold’s too embarrassed about hiring me, and I don’t think she’s gonna talk to Naomi. I can tell ’em not to mention me, though, if that makes you feel better.”

  “Yeah.” Silence except for dishes and utensils, water glugging. “Don’t you have to work at the fitness center?”

  Mae moved to the next flower mural, tilting her head back to gaze at the full height of its petals. “It was easy to get subs. I only teach two classes a week in the summer. People slack on exercise in the heat. My training clients are all on vacation.”

  “Fuck. It’s the money, isn’t it?”

  “No. I mean, sort of, but that’s not the only reason I’m doing the job.”

  A long pause. Crunching. “You need me to help?”

  The offer startled, touched, and confused her. “Sugar, I don’t know which you’re trying to help with, money or the work—”

  “Meant money. But I could do the other, y’know.”

  No. He was too fragile, though he might not like to hear her say that. Mae moved along in her mural tour, down the side of the building toward to the library. “I can’t take money from you. That wouldn’t be good for our relationship. And I’m signing a contract. It specifies me doing the work. Okay?”

  “Jeezus. You sound so fucking practical.”

  “I am practical. But you were sweet to offer. I appreciate it, even if I said no.” Silence. She sat on a bench facing the art, but she didn’t see it anymore, her mind filled with an image of Jamie’s baby seal eyes. She could swear he was giving her that look over the phone. “What are you thinking, sugar?”

  “I’ve missed you. And I was so bloody squirrelly at your place. I need to undo that. Been rehashing it and kicking myself all week. And then—you’ll be in Santa Fe tonight and I won’t even see you. Feels fucked up, like something’s wrong.”