Psychic Junkie (11 page)

I ran myself a bath and knew it was just a matter of time. Now
three
psychics had predicted I’d be famous, so obviously I’d be famous. And love…the great love of my life was just around the corner, just about to appear!

I thanked my lucky stars I’d been led to Erlin and to Psychicdom, and dumped half a bottle of valerian and hops into the bath to promote sleep. It was close to midnight, yet I was so awake I could’ve painted the entire apartment.

As I slipped into the blue overpoweringly fragrant water, I was so excited about my future it almost hurt.

NOTHING TAKES OVER AN ANSWERING MACHINE LIKE
one of Gina’s phone calls. It never matters that she’s essentially talking to herself; once she has yelled “Pick up the phone” a dozen times and is thus satisfied you’re not home, she will then have an entire conversation, asking questions, answering them, elaborating and debating. If you weren’t sitting idly by when she called, screening the message, then you’d get home later, press play, and stand there, legs aching, tempted to delete her rambling halfway through. But you can’t, because she tends to leave the important bits right at the very end. The tricky, sadistic girl.

So, almost two weeks after my introduction to Psychicdom, when I was searching for the right psychic for a little pick-me-up reading and I heard Gina’s voice careening into the room, I prayed for a full message box. However, that wish sometimes backfires, because the message would then be left on my cell phone’s voice mail, along with a supplemental speech on the importance of clearing your messages. I lay down, resigned to a long sprawling message. I just couldn’t handle a conversation with anyone right then, much less someone who might insist I leave my house. Just days prior the company I worked for had floated belly-up in its algae-filled Internet start-up pond, and I’d lost my job as an Internet marketer. This actually had made me very, very happy; with my layoff came severance and unemployment, and if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s being unemployed. Still, I was a bit miffed that
not one
psychic had managed to predict this. I mean, to other people the loss of a job would be monumental, something to predict. How had they missed it?

I was trying to zone out Gina’s ramblings and was about to put the pillow over my head, when suddenly my mind latched on to something she said. I sprang from the bed and yanked the phone from its cradle. “Who? Who’s my future boyfriend?”

It seemed she’d just met a friend of a friend, a sous-chef at a fancy hotel, whom she claimed was perfect for me. “He’s not an actor. Sarah, are you getting this? He’s got a normal job.”

“Yeah, I heard you. But
what
are you calling him?”

“
Villl
-helm.”

“What the hell is that?”

“You know. Wilhelm. German for William, I guess.”

“Wilhelm? He’s German? Great. His ancestors probably gassed mine, and we’ll have some fucked up karma.”

All right. Even I knew how ridiculous I sounded. The truth was that for all my talk about wanting a boyfriend, I was terrified of getting involved again. So far it seemed that the universe tended to intervene in any way it could to mess with my love life, so it seemed a distinct possibility that this Wilhelm and I would be settled on the couch on some rainy day, flipping through old family photos, only to make the gruesome discovery. “This is my great-grandmother,” I’d say, right as he said, “Holy crap. That’s my great-grandfather with the gun. How funny!”

“Sarah, you’re being a freak. Listen. I have a feeling this is important, like this
needs
to happen. And he’s totally your type. He looks just like Elvis. A blond Elvis with green eyes.”

I paused for a moment, wondering where on earth Gina had gotten the idea that Elvis was my type. “Young Elvis or old Elvis?”

“Young Elvis. Jesus, like I’d set you up with old Elvis.”

After she insisted he was a pretty, clean, young Elvis, I agreed to meet him. Then my insides started doing somersaults when I realized his description matched all the predictions. Was this my knight? Was my knight a young blond Elvis look-alike German sous-chef?

On Saturday night Gina arrived at my house, took one look at me, and asked me why I was dressed as Superman.

“The
S
,” I informed her, pointing to my baby doll Superman T-shirt, “stands for Sarah.”

“Uh-huh. Okay.”

I realized then that in my mission to not be vulnerable and to keep my guard up, dressing as a superhero might have been overkill, but we were already late at that point, and Gina wouldn’t let me change.

“We’re supposed to be on the west side in ten minutes,” she said, pointing to the door. “Get in the car, Clark.”

With that she turned and clomped down the steps, stopping at the door and then looking back at me with an encouraging grin, as if to say, “Ready? Ready to meet your future husband?” I nodded, and finally followed her, because as a matter of fact yes, yes I was ready to meet my future husband.

It turned out there were three stages to this particular evening. The first was to meet her friend Dustin, an enormously tall German, at his place. The second was to head to the hotel where Wilhelm worked, so he could join us. And the third was to go to another bar, where, almost two hours after we’d left the house, we’d then officially start the evening. Such genius planning was only one of many reasons why going out seemed like work, but I didn’t complain as we pulled up in front of Dustin’s apartment building. Ever so casually, Gina turned off the car and dropped a bombshell.

Seat belt still on, I twisted toward her as much as I could, staring in disbelief. “He’s
how old
?”

Gina smiled. “Dustin’s age.”

“And that’s
twenty-five
? I thought Dustin was older!”

“He just seems older because he’s so tall. People often make that mistake. But no. Twenty-five. Come on, let’s go.” She grabbed her purse and got out of the car.

Not budging, I yelled after her, “I cannot believe you’re just telling me this now!”

I saw her heading to my side of the car, and I locked the door. I wasn’t getting out. No way. Not for a twenty-five-year-old. No. Twenty-five-year-old guys are still submerged in their frat boy lives; are still stuck in bouts of womanizing, bachelor pad black leather couches, and cinderblock end tables. They think a date means picking up the tab at McDonald’s and romance means not having a football game on in the background. You date a twenty-five-year-old guy when you’re eighteen, not when you’re thirty. In fact, if we got a move on, this thirty-year-old could be resting her ancient bones beneath a blanket and watching
Grease
within the hour.

Gina attempted to unlock my door with her key, but I planted my hand on the lock and foiled her plan. “No. I’m not getting out. You tricked me. You ambushed me with a child.”

“Sarah,” she said, trying to unlock the door and at the same time pull on the handle, a combination that was decidedly ungraceful and yet highly entertaining. “Open up. Come on, unlock it! You will not be sorry; I promise you. He’s mature for his age! He’s German; they’re
born
mature!”

“No.”

Then, suddenly, she stopped pulling. She knelt by my window. In the glimmer of her eyes I could practically
see
her brain switching gears.

“Look,” she said in a very calm and scarily soothing voice. “At the very least you’ll just want to mess around with him. That I can definitely promise you. When you see him, you won’t be able to resist. Okay? Just look at it that way, that this is a really cute, nice guy who will buy you drinks and maybe a dinner or two. He’ll get you out of the house and make you smile. He’s someone to think about. Who cares if he doesn’t turn out to be
the one
? What else do you have right now? This is a cute boy to kiss! Isn’t that a good thing?”

Damnit. She was right. I glared at her as I took my hand off the lock. This whole time I’d been thinking I was about to meet my knight, my future husband, and had been on a cloud nine of anticipation like a girl told there was fine-jewelry shopping or drunken disco dancing in her future. Now I’d have to completely realign my thoughts. I opened the door and stepped out, my heels immediately sinking in and aerating someone’s lawn.
Cute boy to kiss,
I repeated in my mind as Gina quickly locked the car behind me.

I admit, I took one look at the hotel, a glamorous and historic building with opulent décor and views of the ocean, and thought maybe this Wilhelm guy wasn’t that bad. Certainly they wouldn’t have a Senor Frog’s T-shirt wearing, beer-bong-partaking frat boy working here. Maybe he was mature for his age. Maybe there was hope after all.

Gina and I waited at the hotel’s glossy bar while Dustin disappeared to find his friend. The plan was to wait just a few more minutes till Wilhelm was off work, join him for a bottle of wine courtesy of his incredible employee discount, and finally all head over to a different bar, where he could knock back a few more drinks without being scrutinized by his employees. It was actually a shame, because his hotel was gorgeous and equipped with some great people-watching. Glancing around the room, I noticed that someone had meticulously planted a celebrity at every table, as well as in the entry-way, for that matter. On our way in, Dustin had almost stepped on a little sitcom actor.

Just for kicks I imagined dating this Wilhelm creature. I’d meet him at work and sit demurely at the bar with my leopard-print handbag and a black fifties-style coat, my lips glossy red, my dark hair shining. The bartender would rush to make me an apple martini as people looked on with awe. “Who is she?” they’d ask, discreetly trying to catch my reflection in the bar’s mirror. “She looks familiar. She’s got to be important for that bartender to move like that.”

Gina nudged me. “That’s him.”

I looked up. With mounting excitement I scanned the room for a clean, pretty, young Elvis, but saw no one who matched the description. What I did see, however, was Dustin heading toward us with someone who looked like a skinny human version of Mr. Burns, the boss from
The Simpsons
. I was about to ask Gina whom she was talking about, when I realized that this human Mr. Burns did kind of look like Elvis…if I squinted. Panic looped through me and I felt the need to fling Gina into their path and make a break for the door.
She set me up with Mr. Burns?

Then he was before me. He took my hand as he said hello, and I had to admit I liked his voice. He had a debonair quality to him, like he’d own pocket watches and go to the opera, definitely not a frat boy. Yet now I couldn’t stop thinking of him as Mr. Burns.
Stop it,
I told myself.
Give poor Mr. Burns a chance.

We took a seat at a table with a view of the dark and endless ocean. Along with the wine, Wilhelm had a tray of desserts sent over, and I saw Gina, across from me, eyeing the chocolate tortes with alarm. Gina was always on a diet and lacked the ability to have just one of anything, so I knew she’d either skip them altogether or within minutes have the tray on her lap and crumbs on her chin.

Wilhelm turned toward me. “Is this your first time here?”

There was a pause while everyone waited for me to answer the question, but I couldn’t; I was too busy studying his head.

“Yes,” Gina finally said, furiously waving the dessert tray away when Dustin tried passing it to her, “we don’t come to this side of town too often.”

As she explained that there was nothing wrong with this side of town, that it was quite lovely but she’d become allergic to traffic, I figured it out.
It’s his widow’s peak.
I flashed back to just minutes ago, when he’d been heading toward us.
It was the gigantic widow’s peak,
the skin around it reflecting the overhead lights and shining like a mirror—that was what made him look like Mr. Burns. I squinted and this time saw Elvis. The sideburns! That’s why he also looked like Elvis. Sideburns. I’d never dated anyone with sideburns, and I wondered if they were his attempt at hair. Clearly he wasn’t having much luck with the strands on his head, so possibly the sideburns made him feel better. Wow, balding at twenty-five. Good God, he’s
twenty-five…. What am I doing here?

It took me a second to realize everyone was staring at me. Apparently I’d just been asked another question. Drat.

“Right?” Gina said, kicking me under the table. “Silver Lake is where you live?”

“Uh-huh,” I said. “Silver Lake.” Wilhelm had really nice lips. Nice full, luscious lips. I’m a sucker for lips, their lure so powerful they could tempt me to overlook the rest of a person, though I was realizing that Wilhelm needed no overlooking. Once I’d torn my eyes from the very present sideburns and the glaring widow’s peak, I saw his actual face and was pleasantly surprised. He was very cute.

In the background of my mind’s appraisal I heard laughter at something he’d said, so of course I joined in, relieved to learn he appeared to have a sense of humor. Nice lips and a good personality. This was promising! And, I reminded myself, there were drugs for the whole balding thing. If he had insurance, we’d promptly order some prescriptions, and if he didn’t, we’d get some drugs in Mexico, maybe take a weekend trip and stay at a hotel perched on a cliff above the ocean, where we could eat gigantic bowls of cherry pit clams and buy lots of silver jewelry. Then, while the hair drugs took effect, I’d present him with baseball caps. He’d look cute in baseball caps. I was trying to decide what kind—not a sports team cap, since instinct told me he was too much of a pretty boy to be a sports fan, but maybe an Abercrombie & Fitch hat—when Gina whacked me in the arm. “We’re going to the next bar,” she whispered. “You can stare at him there.”

And that I did. We journeyed off to a dimly lit, crowded, humid bar, one of those charming places that reeks of decades of spilled beer. On any other occasion I would’ve caught wind of said beer vapors from the sidewalk, turned, and fled back to the car, but I’d somehow become glued to Wilhelm’s side, so that wasn’t an option. I couldn’t stop looking at him. He was a charmer, a gentleman. I’d heard of guys like this. They existed in past generations. They were stories our grandparents told. They opened doors for you, brought flowers, and helped you with your coat. Never would they be caught on a ragged couch from the seventies, unshaven, and taking a deep toke off a Coke can that had been scientifically transformed into a pipe, as tended to be the case with most of the men I’d dated. This, I thought as Wilhelm ordered me a drink with such refinement I immediately asked for another, was a new experience.