Happy Birthday to Me Again (Birthday Trilogy, Book 2) (19 page)

I
could make a run for it. What’s the worst that could happen? The cop shoots me
and I die. I’ll probably die, anyway. Seriously.
  

I turned off the radio and rolled down
the window. I waited an agonizing minute for the middle-aged black cop to step
out of his car and make his way up to me.
 

I tried to make
my voice sound low. “Uhh, good afternoon, officer.”

“You pulled an
illegal U-turn back there, sonny. Did you see it?”

“Uhh, no I
didn’t.”

The cop took another step forward, and
then turned to me. He crossed his arms and showcased a giant grin on his face.

“I’m sorry,” he
said. “How old are you?”

I looked up at
him. I brought my hands to the wheel. “Eighteen.”

“
Eighteen
?
I might have bought sixteen, kid. Maybe. There’s no way you’re eighteen. What
do you take me for, an idiot?”

“No, of course
not. I get that all the time. I look really young for my age.”

“If you’re eighteen, I’m Denzel
Washington. License and registration. I look forward to seeing this.”

I pulled my registration out of the glove
compartment, and went to grab my wallet from my back pocket. But the wallet
wasn’t there. I wanted to start crying. Everything was going to start
unraveling if I didn’t have that driver’s license to prove I was eighteen. But
then I sighed, happily, finding the wallet grazing the edge of the passenger
seat. I pulled the license out, and handed both the license and registration to
the officer.

He looked at the picture on the license,
which had been taken on my sixteenth birthday, just a few months before I
really sprouted. Thankfully I didn’t look noticeably different from when I took
that picture and now. I certainly looked young, and probably not close to
eighteen. But I figured I had enough proof to scoot by.

“What’s your
birthdate?” he asked.

“June tenth,
1994.”

He sighed. “That means you’re almost
nineteen
.” He analyzed the license even
further. “Wait, you’re Cameron Martin.”

“Uh huh.”

“You’re the kid
who had that weird aging disease. My boy talked about you all the time.”

“Your boy?”

“Yeah. His
name’s Aaron. You two played b-ball together.”

“Oh, you’re
Aaron’s dad? It’s nice to meet you.”

I stuck my hand out, and he shook it. “My
name’s Arthur. It’s nice to meet you, too. Aren’t you the one who’s getting
married?”

“That’s right.
We invited Aaron. I believe you and your wife are invited, too, right?”

“Indeed we are.”
Phew.

I decided to take the aging matter one
step further. “Yeah, see the thing is, as a result of surviving that awful
aging condition, I ended up looking a few years younger than my eighteen years.
It’s a weird side effect to the medication I was on.”
I’m such a good liar. The best one I know.
 

The cop handed me back the registration
and driver’s license. “Sorry to have bothered you,” he said, suddenly cheery.
“Please watch out for those U-turns, all right?”

“Absolutely,
officer. And I’ll see you at the wedding.”

“Of course. Have
a good afternoon.”

I watched as the officer strutted back to
his police car as jovial as can be. I could barely catch my breath.
Oh my God, that was a close one.

I stashed the registration and license
away and looked forward to see that the van had vanished.

No.
“NO!”

I just sat in my car for a moment, trying
to breathe, trying to stay calm. I thought of the girl in the van. I knew it
was only a matter of time.

I’m gonna find you,
I thought.
Whoever you are.

---

At 5 P.M. I pulled up to the curb in
front of the sketchy house at the corner of Plumb and McCarron. The house
looked dark and unoccupied. I wasn’t sure if this woman was still seeing anyone
today, or seeing anyone ever. I stepped outside my car and looked in my wallet
to make sure I had a few twenty-dollar-bills inside. I did. I wasn’t sure how
much this woman was going to be charging, but I didn’t want to look like an
idiot traipsing inside her little establishment with nothing but a couple of
quarters.

I locked my car and stepped up to the
sidewalk. It was odd, really, to see one normal looking home after another on
this block, with probably the smallest house of all in the dead center being
the one to inhabit one of Reno’s most famous psychics, according to Google and
Yelp, at least. It was a little red house, with a cute, thin walkway leading up
to the front porch, surrounded by perfectly trimmed grass and an indefinite
amount of shrubs. The sign outside said “MAGICAL ROSE: Successful Palm Readings
for 35 Years,” and from this sign, I wasn’t sure whether to call her Rose or
Ms. Magic. I reached the front door, which was painted a funky yellowish-brown,
and knocked three times.

I took a step
back and heard, “Come in!”

I opened the door, took one last look
outside, wondering if this might be the last time I see daylight, and headed
into the home. The waiting area was really small, with just a single couch in
the corner, and a desk with various pamphlets on it sitting on the other side
of the room. Ambient music played throughout the home, and the light level was
low, so much so that I could barely see my child-like hands. Most of the light
was coming from various candles placed around the room.

I hate candles
, I thought.
Candles only bring me trouble.

The psychic woman appeared a minute
later, and I was disappointed to discover she looked relatively normal, dressed
in a blouse and slacks, with the only unusual decoration on her body being a
pink headband that covered most of her curly brown hair. I was hoping for a
truly crazy lady, with a big black mole on her nose, jewelry dancing off every
part of her body, and a cackle in her voice that would suggest she was the
witchly mother of Liesel I had yet to meet.

“Hello, and welcome,” she said, parting
the drapes that separated the back room from the front. She walked up to me and
put her hand out.

“Hi,” I said,
shaking her hand. “Thank you for having me.”

“Did you have an
appointment?” I turned to my left to see no other people waiting.

“Uhh, no.”

“That’s fine. My establishment is first
come, first served.” She took a seat at her desk and started writing on a pad
of paper. I tried not to giggle at her funny voice. She had a weird accent,
Brazilian, or South African, maybe. I couldn’t tell.

“Lovely place,
you have here,” I said.

“Thank you. I
must admit, I rarely see anybody in here so
young
.”

“Yeah, well, I’m
not as young as you think.”

“Really? Well, we’ll see about that.” She
jotted some more notes down, and then tapped her fists against the table. “So,
shall we begin? It’s sixty dollars for thirty minutes.”

I looked in my
wallet. I had exactly three twenties. “Sounds perfect.”

“I take cash, but I also take all major
credit cards, as well as money orders, cashier’s checks, and Paypal.”

Uhh, right.
I stood up and handed her the twenties.
“Here.”

“Perfect,” she
said. “Follow me.”

She brought me through the curtains to
the back room, which housed even more candles than the front. The ambient music
was still playing as she blew out the candles furthest away from the table. She
sat me down and lit a lone candle in the center of the table.

Another candle. These things are gonna be
the end of me.

“What’s your
name, son?”

“Uhh, Cameron.”

“Cameron? I’m Becka. It’s nice to meet
you. Now I want you to close your eyes. And let’s begin.”

“OK.”

I closed my eyes, even though I wanted to
be on alert throughout this whole experience. I had never been to a psychic
before, and for all I knew, this woman could be a sick cougar just like Mrs.
Gordon, waiting patiently for the right moment to grab me.
 

If she hypnotizes me, I’m gonna be really
pissed.

“Take a few deep
breaths,” she said. “Just relax, Cameron.”

I tried to do as she said, even though I
could feel both my head and my stomach hurting, this near silence bringing
forth the realization that I was getting further and further away from finding
Liesel.

And
I’m not getting any older,
I thought.
It’s funny. Everyone always
comments on how they’re not getting any younger. I’m the opposite. I’m getting
younger with each passing minute!

“Put your hands
out for me, Cameron. I’m going to read your palms.”

“Oh. All right.”

I brought my hands to the center of the
table and next to the giant orange candle. I tried not to look at the flame,
but even with my eyes closed, I could see the remnants of the burning candle
flickering against my face.

I felt the woman’s cold, clammy hands
touch mine, and I instantly wanted to squirm in my chair. But I didn’t. I
remained cool and calm. I knew this session probably wasn’t going to help me
find Liesel, but I also knew there was a small chance it could. Liesel was
magical, and so, arguably, was this woman. Maybe she’d drop a clue as to her
whereabouts. One clue was all I needed.

“OK, Cameron…
OK…”

“OK?”

“I’m sensing
that you’re nervous,” she said. “Are you nervous right now?”

“Maybe a little.
I’ve never been to a psychic before.”

“It’s all right.
Just try to relax. Listen to the music. Focus on your breathing.”

So far, a lot of nothing, honey.

“Are you able to
tell how old I am?” I asked.

“Please,” she responded.
“Please let me ask the questions.”

“Oh… OK…”

“I sense you’re
a lot older than you look.”

Didn’t I say that earlier?
“Yeah, I am.”

“You look twelve or thirteen, but I sense
that you’re in your late teens. Sixteen, seventeen maybe?”

“I’m eighteen,”
I said.

“And I can sense
you’ve come to me from a great distance.”

I shook my head and pursed my lips. “Not
really. I’m fifteen, maybe twenty minutes away.”

She remained
silent for another minute or so. “Hold on,” she said.

“OK.”

These
silent moments are called filler,
I thought.
Every passing minute she makes
a few more bucks. By the time she starts saying anything of wisdom, my thirty
minutes are going to be up!

“You’ve lost
somebody dear to you, recently,” she finally said.

“Yes. Yes,
that’s right.”

“It’s a woman.
She’s young.”

“Yes.”

“And she’s not
dead. She’s alive. But she’s disappeared. And you can’t seem to find her.”

Bingo!
“Yes, yes you’re absolutely right. Do you know where she
is?”

“Shhh,” she
said. “Keep quiet.”

I did. Another minute passed. I opened my
eyes just a smidge to see her staring at her lap, her head shaking just a
little to suggest she was receiving some or all of her psychic energies.

“She’s your
loved one,” the psychic finally said.

“Yes.”

“She’s trying to
speak to me…”

“What?”

“I can hear
her.”

I opened my eyes
and leaned forward, grasping the psychic’s arms. She pushed me back.

“Sit down, young
man! And close your eyes! Do you want to hear this or don’t you?”

I tried not to scream in terror at her
loud, booming voice as I fell back in my chair and kept my palms up.

“OK,” she said.
“I can hear whispering… she’s trapped somewhere…”

“Where is she?”
I asked. “How can she be trapped? She should be able to get away—”

“Shh… Let me ask
the questions.”

“OK.”

I could hear the psychic breathing
heavily, I hoped because she was receiving more messages from Liesel, and not
because she was about fifty pounds overweight.

“She’s saying…”
the psychic said. “She’s saying… she’s in a familiar place.”

“What? What does
that mean?”

“Silence!”

“Sorry.”

“She says… she’s
where she came from… where she used to be.”

I tried to make sense of what she was
saying. If this psychic was for real, she was trying to tell me Liesel was no
longer in Reno, but in some other city, maybe in some other
realm?