The cab dropped me on the wrong side of the street, and as I was waiting to cross over, I saw a man I knew and automatically nodded hello. Then I realized that I couldn’t remember where I knew him from and was afraid I’d Recognized a Famous Person. Rachel had once done that: stopped Susan Sarandon on the street and interrogated her as to where she’d seen her before. Did they go to the same gym? Was she a “friend of Bill’s”? Had she seen her at the dermatologist? Then, very faintly, Rachel said, “Thelma and Louise,” and backed away, mortified.
But the mystery man was stopping to talk to me.
“Hey, little girl,” he said. “How’re you doing?”
“Good.” I nodded desperately.
“You’re Rachel’s sister? I’m Angelo. We met one morning in Jenni’s.”
How could I have forgotten him? He was so unusual-looking, with his gaunt, drawn face, dark deep-set eyes, long hair, and Red Hot Chili Pepper–style magnetism.
“Things any better?” he asked.
“No. I feel very bad. Especially today.”
“You wanna go for coffee?”
“I can’t. I have a meeting.”
“Take my number. Call me if you ever want to talk.”
“Thank you, but I’m not an addict.”
“That’s okay. I won’t hold it against you.”
He scribbled something on a torn piece of paper. Limply I accepted it and said, “My name is Anna.”
“Anna,” he repeated. “You take care. Great clothes, by the way.”
“Bye,” I said, and let the scrap of paper fall into the bottom of my bag.
I went to my meeting but I was off form, I couldn’t manage to care enough to play hardball on terms with Mr. Fancy Lights, and I left without having agreed on anything.
Back out on the street, I was strolling along, scanning the traffic for a cab, when a guy handed me a leaflet. Normally, I stick them straight in the first bin I see because, in this neck of the woods, they’re always flyers for “designer” sales to catch the tourists. But something made me look at this one.
* * *
PSYCHIC REALM
Discover your future.
Receive answers from the other side.
From a medium with the true gift of the second sight.
Call Morna
* * *
At the bottom was a phone number and suddenly I was seized with excitement close to frenzy. Receive answers from the other side. I stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk, causing a mini pileup. “Asshole,” someone said. “Tourist” (a much worse insult), said someone else.
“Sorry,” I said. “Sorry, sorry.” I moved out of the flow of bodies into the shelter of a doorway, pulled my cell phone out of my bag, and, with fingers that trembled with hope, rang the number. A woman answered.
“Is that Morna?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“I’d like to have a reading.”
“Can you come now? I have a free appointment.”
“Sure! Yes! Absolutely!” Who cared about work!
Morna directed me to an apartment two streets away.
As I went up in the jerky elevator, my blood pounded so hard, I found myself wondering what it would feel like to have a heart attack.
To be given a flyer on Forty-first Street that didn’t advertise a “designer” sale—what were the chances of that? And to be able to get an appointment with Morna immediately? Surely this was meant to have happened?
For a moment I let myself think my greatest hope: Aidan, what if she gets through to you? What if we actually make contact? What if I get to speak to you?
Nearly in tears from excitement, hope, desperation, I found Morna’s apartment and rang her bell.
A voice called through the door, “Who is it?”
“My name is Anna. I rang a few minutes ago.”
There came the rattle of chains being undone and thunks as keys were turned in heavy locks and finally the door was opened.
In my state of overblown hope, I’d pictured Morna wearing flowy, beaded layers, with badly cut graying hair and heavy kohl around wise old eyes, living in a dimly lit apartment, full of red velvet throws and fringey lamps.
But this was an ordinary woman—probably in her midthirties—in a dark blue tracksuit. Her hair could have done with a wash and I couldn’t see how wise and old her eyes looked because she avoided eye contact.
Her apartment was also a disappointment: a TV in the corner blared Montel, children’s toys were scattered on the floor, and there was a very strong smell of toast.
Morna turned the sound down on Montel, directed me to a stool at the breakfast bar, and said, “Fifty dollars for fifteen minutes.”
It was a lot but I was so hyped up that I just said, “Okay.”
My breath was coming in short, tight gasps and I thought Morna would notice my frantic state and treat me accordingly. But she just clambered onto a stool on the opposite side of the breakfast bar and handed me a pack of tarot cards. “Cut them.”
I hesitated. “Instead of a card reading, can you try to contact”—what should I say?—“someone who has died.”
“That’s extra.”
“How much?”
She studied me. “Fifty?”
I hesitated. It wasn’t the money, it was the sudden, unpleasant suspicion that I was being had. That this woman wasn’t really a medium, but simply a swizzer preying on innocent tourists.
“Forty,” she said, confirming my suspicions.
“It’s not the money,” I said, on the verge of tears. Hope had spilled over into disappointment. “It’s just that if you’re not a medium, please tell me. This is important.”
“Sure, I’m a medium.”
“You get in contact with people who have died?” I stressed.
“Yeah. You want to go ahead?”
What was to be lost? I nodded.
“Okay, let’s see what we’ve got.” She pressed her fingers to her temples. “You’re Irish, right?”
“Right.” In a way I wished I’d said I was Uzbeki; I felt uncomfortable giving her any information that she hadn’t found out psychically, but I didn’t want to do anything to scupper this.
She cast a sharp eye over my clothes and my scars, and came to rest on my wedding ring.
“I have someone here.”