Too Near the Edge (3 page)

I had actually reached a point where I
thought I might be getting close to Grampa when Tyler appeared for
the first time. I felt strangely lightheaded, looked up to
re-orient myself, and saw a blond, blue-eyed guy in a faded gray
“Never Stop Surfing” tee shirt, black nylon shorts and gray rubber
sandals. He sat there in the mirror, cross-legged, like he was
ready for yoga class to begin. I nearly fell off my chair! And he
looked as surprised as I was.

“Yo! What’s up, dude?” he said.

“Um…who are you and what are you doing here?”
I asked, taking a deep breath.

“I’m Tyler. Where’s here? I’m clueless.”

I had no idea where to begin. “Are you
dead?”

“I guess.”

I wondered how he could not know whether he
was dead or not, but pursuing that seemed rude even to a highly
curious person like me. So I moved on. “How did you get here?”

“Surfing the mean everlasting waves. And then
I bailed.”

That fit with his tee shirt, but otherwise I
was more confused than ever. “Wow! I was trying to reach my
grandfather, James Donnelly. He died in 1996. Do you know him?”

“It’s not like that there. Knowing people is
totally weird.”

“Look, I know it’s not your fault, but this
is pretty frustrating,” I said. “I was following the instructions
for reaching dead people, and then you show up, and you don’t even
know whether you’re dead or not. Let’s see whether I can touch
you.”

As I reached out to grab his hand, I felt a
sharp tingle between us and he was gone. Nothing in the room looked
any different than it had before Tyler showed up. But I felt
absolutely positive he had been there, that he was not a figment of
my imagination. I was pretty sure that if I were going to imagine
someone, it wouldn’t have been Tyler.

I wanted to find out more about Tyler that
day, so I stayed in my apparition chamber, gazed intently into the
mirror and tried to conjure him up again. This was the first of
many failed attempts to get Tyler to show up on demand. As I got to
know him, I quickly learned that like many of us, Tyler does not
respond well to directives. Over all the time I have known him, he
has made a point of appearing when it suited him rather than when
I’ve tried to summon him.

I’ve learned to take Tyler seriously, even
though he has an annoying way of giving me instructions that are
mostly confusing. I don’t take well to being told what to do
either, so I more or less ignored his suggestions in the beginning.
But last year I got into a jam I would have avoided if I’d taken
his advice, and to my surprise he pretty much got me out of it, so
ever since then, I’ve paid attention.

Tyler isn’t someone I knew when he was alive,
nor is he someone summoned by one of my clients. In fact, I don’t
know anyone who knew him. I assume he did exist, but even though
I’ve Googled him and done other types of web searches, I haven’t
been able to get enough information about his earthly life to look
him up in records or anything like that.

Talking to a dead person is different from
what you might imagine. Of course the dead person has all the
power. After all, they’ve been where you are, but you haven’t been
where they are. They come and go at will—that’s their will—and they
give out remarkably little information. There’s so much we want to
know from them, but they don’t seem to find that important. Tyler,
for example, brushes off most of my questions.

“Can you see us here on earth going about our
lives?” I asked him once.

“We could, but it’s totally boring,” he
said.

“Well, what are you doing that’s so
interesting then?”

“It’s awesome. Endless summer. Riding the big
waves every day.”

I expect we could go on and on like that—but
usually his visits are short so we don’t. I figure Tyler finds it
too tedious to talk to a living person at any length.

Until yesterday, I hadn’t told anyone about
Tyler. As a licensed psychologist with a private grief-therapy
practice, I’m more than a little touchy about being seen as
unprofessional, eccentric, or, even worse, fraudulent. But last
night, in a fit of intimacy that came on as I gazed into Pablo’s
adorable dark-brown eyes, I spilled the whole thing. He’s a police
detective, so it’s his job to be skeptical. But he’s also an
artist, and he meditates, and he can be a tender, sensitive guy.
Except when he isn’t. Like last night.

“Cleo, it’s easy to imagine something that
you really want to have happen,” he said. “Some of the stories we
hear at the station are even more incredible than this. But use
your common sense. Contacting dead people is not very likely. And,
if by some miracle you were able to reach someone, wouldn’t it be
your grandfather? Why would some dead surfer dude be hanging around
visiting you?”

“I don’t know why Tyler visits me. But I do
know I’m not making him up. And I have actually reached Grampa
once, but I never told you because I was afraid you would say I
imagined it. Silly me!”

“Okay, Cleo. I thought we agreed not to talk
about this contact stuff. You know how I feel about it.” Pablo knew
about this aspect of my grief therapy practice. It’s not like I
keep the Contact Project a secret. But he has never approved of me
helping my clients get in touch with dead people. Basically he
thinks it’s a situation where grief-stricken people delude
themselves into visualizing the person they want to reach.

“You’re right. I never should have told you
about Tyler.” I was mad at myself for telling him, but even more
mad at him for not taking me seriously. “Come on Pablo, be a little
bit open-minded. I thought you were trained to look at all the
facts. Couldn’t you at least consider that what I’m describing has
actually happened?”

“Facts! What facts?” Pablo circled my living
room like a dog in need of a walk. His eyes, no longer so adorable,
bored holes in my head. “I’ve tried to be understanding about this
‘new direction’ in your grief therapy practice. But you’re right,
I’m trained to look at facts, and I don’t see any here. And it
doesn’t help my standing in the department that I hang out with
someone who talks to spirits.”

Our debate continued in that vein for a
while, tensions rising. Finally, I reached the end of my patience.
“Out,” I screamed, pointing at the door. “I can’t imagine why I
ever thought a policeman would understand.”

“I understand a lot more than you think I
do,” Pablo said just before he slammed the door.

As if I needed reassurance Tyler was real, he
appeared that Saturday evening when I wasn’t even in the apparition
chamber. I was in my bedroom getting ready for Elisa’s party,
deciding between a soft cotton brown and black batik pants outfit
or an aqua and white floral print linen sundress. The pants outfit
won. It’s one of my favorites, because I think it makes me look
taller. The light was dim, and I was doing a final check on my
appearance in the oversized Mexican mirror that hangs over my
dresser, when I felt the lightheadedness. I turned to sit on the
bed, but before I could move toward it, I saw Tyler lounging on it.
I wanted to be careful not to scare him off, so I slowly and
quietly sat down on the floor.

“You’re back,” I said.

“Duh!” Tyler replied.

“I’ve been trying to reach you all week, but
I couldn’t do it.”

“Hey, chill. I’m right here.”

“So, what made you decide to show up
now?”

“I have a 411 for Sharon.”

“What! You know about her?”

He didn’t answer.

“I thought you told me you don’t do
messages,” I said.

“Yo. Check it out. I have a message.”

“OK, let’s hear it.”

“Sharon needs to watch her back, watch for
sharks.”

“Could you be a little more specific?”

“No – that’s it. I gave you the word. Now
it’s all you. She needs some serious help.”

And with that, Tyler vanished. I dashed to my
apparition chamber, hoping to catch him so I could drill him for
more information about Sharon. But the chamber was empty. It felt
more like a slightly shabby dressing room than any mystical place.
I couldn’t get a sense of any energy having been there
recently.

This whole thing with Elisa’s friend Sharon
was beginning to look a lot more interesting than I had expected.
My curiosity was seriously piqued. I found myself looking forward
to Elisa’s party with a mixture of excitement and apprehension.

Elisa and Jack Bonner’s house is perched on
the side of a mountain in Pine Brook Hills, a fifteen-minute drive
from Boulder, with views of the foothills and the Boulder city
lights that add thousands to its value. They built the house in
1991 when Jack started making big money in commercial real estate,
and like everything involving Elisa, it was done on a grand scale.
Vaulted ceilings, soaring windows, hardwood floors, custom
lighting, natural stone fireplace—the works. No question they spend
money where it shows. I’m not always comfortable with that.
Sometimes it strikes me as an overstated in-your-face kind of
materialism. But I have to admit I love their extravagant parties,
where the food and the wine is decadently delicious.

I let myself in to the living room where at
least thirty people were drinking wine and snacking on Elisa’s
famous hors d’oeuvres. Guitar music and raucous conversation
floated toward me from the deck in back of the house. As I stood
near the door checking out the crowd, I saw a tall woman with
shaggy reddish-brown hair cross the flagstone patio to the front
door. She wore a green silk shirt, white crop pants and sandals,
and looked to be in her mid-thirties—just about my age. She
hesitated, grimaced briefly, shrugged her shoulders and reached
toward the doorbell. She looked vaguely familiar, and I was about
to open the door and invite her in when she rang the bell. Elisa
ran up, swung the screen door open and mashed her in an enormous
hug.

“Sharon, honey! At last! We were afraid you’d
changed your mind again.” Elisa had on one of her more exotic
outfits—a turquoise and silver dress with an intricate filigreed
silver belt—that guaranteed she would stand out in the crowd.

“I’ve been watching for you, you know. I
intend to personally make sure you enjoy yourself tonight.”

“I told you I’m not sure I’m really up for a
party,” Sharon said, “but here I am.”

“You’ll be so glad you came once you meet
Cleo,” Elisa said, ferrying Sharon toward me. “Cleo, this is
Sharon, at last! Sharon, Cleo. I’ll leave you two to get acquainted
while I run to the kitchen to check on the servers.” Elisa darted
off through the crowd, grabbing empty glasses and discarded napkins
from tables as she passed by.

By then I had figured out how I knew Sharon.
“You’re Sharon from Shady Terrace,” I said.

She had recognized me as well. “Right. I’m a
social worker there,” she said, giving me a small smile. “And your
grandmother is Martha Donnelly. I don’t usually work on the
Alzheimer’s unit, but we’ve met at Family Council meetings. I just
never connected you to Elisa. I really don’t know anything about
your work, but Elisa’s been nagging me about meeting you. You know
how insistent she can be.”

“Don’t mind Elisa. She can be totally pushy,
but she means well. Would you like to go out back on the deck where
we can take advantage of the view?”

“Sounds fine.” Sharon stopped for a glass of
merlot at a long table that held several bottles of wine, juices
and soft drinks in a large tub—then followed me through the double
doors out to the deck. We sat on a short redwood bench near the
railing where we could look out over the lights of the city of
Boulder below.

“Actually, Elisa called me today to let me
know she’d been pushing you to talk to me,” I said. “She told me
your husband died recently and that’s why she wanted us to talk.
I’m so sorry for your loss. How are you doing?”

“It’s been three months, and I miss Adam
terribly. Worse than that, sometimes I sort of forget that he’s
dead. I find myself thinking ‘I have to tell Adam about this’ and
then I remember he’s gone,” Sharon said, leaning toward me with
tears in her eyes.

I sat quietly with her for a few seconds,
giving her time to collect herself. Then I spoke softly,
acknowledging her feelings. “It’s hard to accept that someone is
gone,” I said. “Especially when the death is sudden.”

Sharon took a sip of her wine and sat up
straighter. “Elisa says you’re a grief therapist with an unusual
project that can help me. What is it, and how does it work?”

“Yes, I’m a grief counselor. And everyone who
is part of the project also does a lot of grief work. So, the
project…the Contact Project…It’s different and it’s absolutely not
for everyone. What it is…well it’s a way of helping people make
contact with loved ones who have died, which is why I call it the
Contact Project.”

I wasn’t sure how much Elisa had told her
about Contact so I decided to tread carefully. I spoke calmly,
providing the information matter-of-factly with no indication that
what I described was any more out of the ordinary than a new
long-distance phone service.

Sharon choked up. “I feel like I’d try just
about anything to be able to talk to him again,” she said. “But—not
to be rude or anything, I’ve always heard that these processes turn
out to be fakes that get people’s hopes up for nothing. Or, even
worse, trick people out of a lot of money telling them they can
reach someone they love, and then all they get is some taps on a
table in a dark room. Adam was always so down-to-earth and
sensible, it’s hard to imagine him or his spirit or whatever hiding
under a table in a séance room waiting to contact me.”

I was used to this reaction and worse
whenever I described the project, so I wasn’t ruffled by Sharon’s
skeptical response. She didn’t know my credentials, and I figured
she thought I was one more New-Age flaky Boulderite, and maybe she
felt irritated at Elisa for arranging this introduction without
warning her about what the project really was.