Ghost Sickness Page 3

  “You did it by accident?”

  “Sort of.”

  Mae described her vision and sensations.

  Niall chuffed a sound through his teeth and shook his head. “And you still don’t want me to buy you that building?” He tossed her the lighter. “You have a good night.” He got into the car and shut the door.

  Marty said softly, “He really is confronting his mortality. Florencia’s situation scares him more than he’ll let on. Don’t worry about him actually buying that building.”

  “Good. I don’t want it.” Mae wrapped her hand around the cigarettes and lighter. “But I’m real glad I stopped to look at it.”

  “I’m glad you did, too. All our years together, I’ve been worried about losing him early. I know he’s a cranky sonofabitch, but he’s the love of my life.” He gave her a quick hug. “Maybe I’ll get to keep him a little longer. Thank you.”

  Marty got in the driver’s side, reached over and squeezed Niall’s hand, and started the car.

  With the feeling of completing some sort of ritual, Mae dropped the cigarettes in the trash can on the corner, then crossed Broadway and started down Foch in the direction of the river. Vacancy signs glowed on the spas she passed. Tourism fell off when it was ninety to a hundred degrees by day and creeping down to eighty at night. No one else was out walking except a cat scurrying into an alley. She strolled the half block of Marr to her house, looking up at the stars, brilliant above the dimly lit street. After fourteen months in the desert she still marveled at them. Tonight her sense of awe was deeper, as if her mind could float into the black spaces between the thousand blazing lights. Something extraordinary had happened, in a space where life, death, love, and time crossed threads and wove a small miracle.

  A miracle by mistake. She couldn’t regret it, and yet it bothered her a little to be reminded that her gift could be beyond her control.

  She let herself into the pea-soup green converted trailer and took off her shoes. Niall had put in silky-smooth bamboo floors and he didn’t want a grain of dirt ground into them. Mae’s only additions to the décor were pictures of her twin stepdaughters from her second marriage, at all ages ranging from one year to their current seven years. Otherwise, the place reflected Niall’s taste, and what he’d thought people renting a house in T or C would like: fifties “antiques”—a pointy-legged turquoise couch and arm chair set, a boomerang-shaped coffee table and end tables, and two of his sculptures, a sheep made of old springs and horseshoes and a javelin thrower made of rusted scrap metal.

  Mae sat on the couch and surfed channels until she found a Red Sox game. After a day like today, she needed some downtime, and baseball soothed her mind. Except when Jamie was around. She’d tried to get him to watch a game with her once and it had brought out a grouchy restlessness in him.

  Her phone rang. Jamie.

  “Wanted to let you know I’ll be a little late tomorrow. Sorry—forgot I had Dr. G.” His therapist. “And then, Wendy’s going overboard being a manager. Wants me to get a new van for the tour. Have some time to get used to it, make sure it’s good. I thought it’d be nice to find another old Aerostar, like a reincarnation, but she doesn’t. She wants to go to the dealership with me and let her approve what I get. And tomorrow’s the day she’s free to do it.”

  “Then I guess you’d better buy it tomorrow. I know you loved the Aerostar, but Wendy’s right. You don’t need another old van. I’d feel better if you had something at least new-ish.”

  “Mm. Yeah. Guess. Might make friends with it by the time I leave.”

  “Are you getting rid of the Fiesta?”

  “Fuck, no.” He sounded as if she’d suggested he get rid of a pet. “It’s my real car. Y’know? The van’s for touring.” A rustling noise, followed by crunching. Mae pictured the ever-present bags of blue corn chips and green chile pistachios in his kitchen. He talked around whatever he was eating, and his volume rose in delight at something that had entered his mind. “Yeah—just thought—yeah—oh—great. Fantastic.” He swallowed and spoke more clearly. “Perfect. I can use the van tomorrow. I’ll have a surprise for you.”

  “The van?”

  “Nah. You know I’m getting that. Something else.” His cat meowed in the background, and Jamie spoke a few words to him. “Got to spend some time with him tonight. Poor little bloke. He’ll feel abandoned. Four days. Wish I could bring him.”

  Jamie took his cat on tour. He walked his cat on a leash. Gave the animal massages and Reiki. All of that was fine—but he slept with his cat, and Gasser was huge, flatulent, and jealous. “He’ll be okay with your landlady.”

  “Yeah. I just worry, y’know?” More crunching, and then a pause and a snort-laugh. “Jeezus. That’s like saying I breathe.”

  Mae could tell by Jamie’s shift into light fretting that he was going to talk a while, and not about anything in particular. Enjoying the ups and downs of his voice and his occasional hah-snort-hah at his own jokes, she let him ramble and responded when necessary while she watched the game. Jamie’s run-on chatter was like a hug of sorts, his lively tenor voice wrapping around her, and she expected that for him her fond though half-attentive listening was a kind of embrace as well.

  When she rose to get a glass of iced tea on a commercial break, Jamie broke off his monologue, making her think he was winding down to say goodbye, but he got his second wind. “Sorry, been yabbering—didn’t even ask. How was your day?”

  “Kinda strange. Niall’s friend Florencia Mirabal went into hospice yesterday—”

  “Bloody hell, I didn’t know she was dying. Guess I wouldn’t. I mean, it’s not like I knew her. Just—y’know—she’s someone. Sad for him. He holding up all right?”

  Mae poured sweet tea and took a sip. “Packing her stuff was hard on him. But she doesn’t really have any other friends except maybe Reno Geronimo—”

  “Reno’s in T or C? Jeezus. I still think of him as a little kid. Dunno why.”

  “He’s been studying art with her. But I think something may have gone wrong between them, and something happened with her family, too. They don’t have any contact.”

  “You’d think she’d want to fix all that. Dying.”

  “Doesn’t sound like it.” She stood drinking her tea, watching lizards catching moths on her window screen. “I bet my mama wouldn’t speak to me if she was dying. Some people are good at grudges.”

  “Hospice gives her time, though. She could think about it. Is it cancer?”

  “Yeah. Breast cancer spread to her bones, her liver ... I think they caught it pretty late.”

  “Jeezus. Awful way to go. Hate to say it, but I always think about Niall getting lung cancer and that he’ll die that way.”

  “I’ve thought that, too. But he might not. He quit smoking.”

  “You serious? That’s a fucking miracle.”

  “It kinda was.” Mae described the events at the Ellis building and Niall’s inability to smoke. She knew Jamie would understand. He had a healing gift, too, though he limited his use of it.

  “That’s beautiful. Weird, though. Dunno what I’d do if I suddenly couldn’t eat this whole fucking bag of chips.” Crinkling sounds. “You have a bad habit, you have a relationship with it. Deep one. If it just went away there’d be like a hole where the habit was.”

  “I think there is. He kept trying to smoke and he couldn’t.”

  “Skinny bastard. Maybe he’ll finally eat.” Jamie laughed. “Don’t heal me, all right? I might start to smoke.”

  She laughed with him, told him she loved him, and that she was going to watch baseball now. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Whenever you get there.”

  “Yeah. Dunno what time. Meet me behind the singers near the big tipi if it’s after dark. Best place to see the dances. Fucking powerful. Lightning will strike your bones.”

  “That sounds wonderful. But—will you really get there after dark? Why would you be that late?”

  “Got to prepare the surprise for you. Hooroo, l
ove. Catcha.”

  Chapter Three

  The next morning in Passion Pie Café, Misty glared past Mae with wounded anger as she handed over her travel mug and took her money without looking at it. Mae looked around to see what might be the problem. Reno was coming in. He met the barista’s eyes briefly and sank into a chair at one of the art-topped tables, drumming his fingers on the picture of a lizard in the desert. Each tabletop in the café featured the work of a local artist and was for sale. Some not currently in use hung on the walls, including Delmas Howe’s image of powerful male arms in an embrace. The one where Reno sat had been there a long time without selling. He stopped tapping the lizard, propped his elbows on the table and looked down at it.

  Misty gave Mae her change and put on a tense, polite smile. Mae pressed her mug’s stubborn lid into place, leaning on it. A man in line behind her said, “Quite the thing—Niall not smoking.”

  The lid snapped down and she turned to see the speaker. He was pink-faced, white-bearded and thin, a T or C old hippie in jeans and a tie-dyed T-shirt. She didn’t know his name, though she’d seen him in the coffee shop before.

  The old hippie shook her hand. “I know who you are. I’m Chuck Brady. Retired.”

  In the small town, Mae often found that people knew who she was before she told them. “Nice to meet you.”

  Misty’s false smile melted into a genuine one. “When he introduces himself that way, he thinks you should ask him what he retired from.”

  Mae took the hint. “Retired from what?”

  Misty answered before Chuck could. “Retired bullshitter.”

  “No,” he said cheerfully. “I still do plenty of that. Retired lawyer. Turned the practice over to my lovely wife. Who smokes like a goddamned chimney. Niall called her last night about doing something with Florencia’s place and he mentioned what you’d done for him. He knows how badly she wants to quit.”

  “Is your wife Florencia’s lawyer?” Mae hoped Niall had talked to her about an alarm system or storing the art collection, as well as quitting smoking.

  “That she is. We wondered if you could help her the way you helped Niall. Do you have a healing practice somewhere?”

  Mae shook her head

  “You should. Misty, m’dear, do you know what this lady can do?”

  “No.” Misty glanced at Reno, then back at Chuck. “The usual?”

  “Yes ma’am, if you please.” He put his money on the counter, then turned the coins on their sides, spinning them and slapping them down. “Mae is a healer so amazing she could even make your hair stop smoking.”

  Misty’s hair had briefly caught fire during her street performance at the last Art Hop. She rolled her eyes at Chuck, then turned away and began to pour green tea, fruit juice and ice into a blender. He continued, his resonant voice carrying in the small room. “According to Niall Kerrigan, this young woman is a psychic as well as a healer. She had a vision of Magnolia’s times and felt the healing—”

  “Please,” Mae said softly. “That wasn’t a normal thing to have happen to me. I sometimes feel like my Granma guides me—she was a healer, too—but I don’t do anything like channel Magnolia. I’ll be happy to try to help your wife, but it won’t be like what happened with Niall. Energy healing isn’t usually that dramatic.”

  Misty started the blender. Chuck studied the baked goods in the glass case on the counter. A group of patrons left, calling goodbye to Misty, and she hollered a reply over the blender’s whir. When the machine stopped, Chuck left off examining pastries and turned to Mae. “Daphne’s tried everything else but she just can’t kick the habit. I don’t care if you channel Magnolia, as long as you can help her quit.”

  “Okay. We’ll have to figure out where to meet ... and what I’d charge.” Mae took her business card from her purse and gave it to Chuck.

  He studied it. “Personal trainer?”

  “I used to do more healing and psychic work before I moved to New Mexico, but I mostly work in fitness now.”

  “That was backwards. Most people move here and then get wacky. I’ll talk to my better half and see when she wants you to make her even better.” He tapped on the pastry case. “Misty, darling, I crave an apricot bar instead of date today.”

  “Same price.” She began to scrape the iced tea concoction from the blender into a glass. “Have a seat. I’ll bring your stuff to you.”

  He took the table next to Reno’s and greeted him. Reno’s response was expressionless and barely audible. What had happened between him and Misty? Newly engaged and fighting? He’d lost Florencia’s friendship. Maybe he was hard to get along with.

  As Mae passed his table, Chuck invited her to join him.

  “Thanks, but I need to head out. Have a good day. Tell your wife she can call me. I’ll be in Mescalero for a few days but we can make an appointment for when I get back.”

  Reno stood, gazed at Misty for a moment while she continued to excavate Chuck’s drink from between the blender’s blades, and then opened the door for Mae and followed her out.

  “Is this shit actually true?” Reno sounded more worried than hostile, in spite of his choice of words. “I get the healing part. I can believe that. But are you really psychic? Kenny said you were, but well—Kenny—nice guy, but he’d believe anything.”

  Mae asked, “Does it bother you?”

  “No. Why should it?”

  “I don’t know. You came across like it did. Some folks worry that I could read their minds.” She noticed his uneasy frown deepening and added, “I can’t.”

  “So what do you do? Tell fortunes?”

  “No. I can’t see the future. Just the past and the present.”

  “Kind of useless, isn’t it?” He gripped the metal railing that aided the less mobile in getting up the hilly hump of the sidewalk. “I’d hardly need to go to a psychic to have her tell me my own past.”

  “I do things like finding lost pets for people. If they bring me something like their pet’s favorite toy or blanket, I can sense the pet’s energy and see ’em.”

  He spent a moment absorbed in examining the railing. “How could you tell if it was the past or the present?”

  “Sometimes I can’t. Context helps, though.”

  “Do people ever ask you to find out someone else’s past?”

  “Sometimes. But they have to have a good reason for needing to know it.”

  Reno slid his hands into his pockets and looked past Mae’s shoulder. He was a smaller man than she’d realized, about three inches shorter than her as well as delicately built. A silly image crossed her mind. I could pick him up.

  He asked, “Why are you going to Mescalero? Are you being a tourist or what?”

  “Sort of an invited tourist. Do you know Bernadette Pena?”

  He squinted, then nodded. “One of her cousins is married to one of Misty’s sisters.”

  “She’s a good friend of mine. She asked me to come to the ceremonies and the powwow. And she works at the same college as my boyfriend’s daddy, Stan Ellerbee—and they always go. So I got invited twice.”

  “Ah, the professor.” Reno’s warm almost-smile emerged from his inner clouds. “He’s been hanging out with my father since I was five.”

  Stan, a New Mexico Anglo, had married in Australia and lived there for many years, then moved his family to his home town of Santa Fe fifteen years ago. He’d been doing research in Mescalero off and on during that time.

  “Then you must know Jamie.”

  Reno paused, his posture straighter yet more relaxed. A corner of his mouth twitched. “Of course I do. He’s hard to overlook.” He opened the door of the café. “Excuse me. I need to talk to Misty. Have a safe trip.”

  Mae got in her car and headed toward 25 South, following Main Street past the red-and-white striped Brady and Brady building on the corner of Foch. Mae always thought of it as the candy-cane law office. Anywhere but T or C it might have looked odd, but many of the buildings, from spas to trailers, were brightly colore
d or painted with murals. Plain adobe broke up the crayon-box look and blended the town with its desert surroundings, but its overall appearance, from the water tower featuring Apaches on horseback to the enormous Delmas Howe flowers on the civic center, said Artists live here. Artists and eccentrics. Even the lawyers were a little offbeat. She sipped her coffee, thinking about Chuck’s enthusiasm for her gift.

  He’d been eager to hire her as a healer, but it was his mention of her psychic abilities that had gotten Reno’s attention. The young artist had denied that her gift bothered him, but his expressions and body language said otherwise, and his questions had kept coming. It wasn’t like an attempt to be friendly. He hadn’t thawed or smiled until she’d mentioned Stan and Jamie. For some reason, Reno seemed troubled by her having the Sight.

  After nearly a three-hour drive through empty desert, the outskirts of Las Cruces, then more empty desert and some tiny towns, the Mescalero Apache lands came as a pleasant surprise, greener than any place Mae had seen since moving out West. Though the mountains were tall and peaked rather than round and gentle, the area in some ways reminded her of her roots in Appalachian North Carolina, with small homes clinging to the steep, forested hillsides.

  A dark-haired woman on a black Harley shot past her on NM Route 70 as she approached her destination, the tribe’s ceremonial grounds. The rider, helmet-less like most New Mexico bikers, looked like Misty—and she was going at least eighty in a fifty-five zone. Had she left work early? Broken the speed limit all the way? The talk with Reno must not have gone well.

  Following the directions Jamie had given her, Mae took a side road off 70 and started to follow the curve uphill past a blue house with a sagging porch. The Harley was parked in the old house’s driveway, and Misty was having a tantrum in the yard, kicking a tree, flinging pebbles at it and screaming. “I hate him! I hate him!”

  This must be Misty’s parents’ house, the tree a stand-in for Reno—and no one was at home to deal with the drama. They would all be at the powwow. Mae drew her car alongside the Harley and got out. “Misty? What’s the matter?”