Psychic Junkie (23 page)

This was a huge step for me, as it involved both leaving my house and driving to the Valley, where the psychic lived. Leaving my house for the first time was already difficult, but leaving it in order to head to the Valley was a little like an agoraphobic deciding her first venture in public should be a day at Disneyland. As the land became flatter, the sky grew smoggier, and the temperature rose by about fifteen degrees, I seriously began questioning my sanity. I hated the Valley. Even the people who lived in the Valley hated the Valley, and were notorious for trying to disguise the location of their homes by saying things like “I live in Sherman Oaks,” which to the untrained ear sounds like “I live in Sherman Oaks,” but to the true Los Angeleno it sounds a whole hell of a lot like “I live in the Valley.”

At any rate I was desperate, and desperation will make you do crazy things like drive to the Valley to meet a psychic. More than anything I just needed to hear that life would once again be okay, but this psychic also came highly recommended, and she practiced psychometry, the art of reading by way of holding a personal belonging. No matter how severe my heartbreak, a new form of fortune-telling was impossible to resist.

An hour later, sweating from the grueling heat, I arrived at Carol Ann’s house, a single-story slab of stucco with windows, a door, and a street address that was six digits long (another delightful feature of the Valley). No time was wasted with pleasantries, and with barely a word I was led to a kitchen that smelled so strongly of Pine-Sol that I suspected she hadn’t been cleaning with it but had instead opted to use it as a room spray. Was she high on the fumes? Would that affect my reading? Or was it what made her psychic? Perhaps she employed some strange cleaning-agent-fumes portal into the future?

In a charming I’m-on-the-other-line-what-do-

you-need-and-make-it-fast manner, she asked to hold my personal belonging. I’d come prepared and was wearing my antique Victorian gold moonstone ring, a ring I loved and had bought for myself (no big surprise there) years ago. Without another word she took the ring and held it in her fist, her eyes closed. She was silent. And silent. And silent for so long I began to wonder if she was fighting to stay conscious and not succumb to the fumes, but then I began to wonder if perhaps she was confused by receiving information on the ring’s
original
owner’s life.
What, what’s this?
I imagined her thinking.
On your trip to the cobbler you’ll meet a gentleman in a fine pair of top boots with something they call a
zipper
? Rejoice, for he is a good Protestant? What’s this now about taking care while chewing the mutton tonight?

Finally she set my ring on the table and glared at me. “There are so many
holes
in your aura that it’s impossible to read you.”

“Oh.” What?

She shook her head. “You’ve had too many readings. Ideally you need six months after a reading before you get another one.”

I laughed.

“
At least
forty-eight hours. The way it works is that every time you get a reading, the reader taps into your energy to receive the messages. When they do this, you’re left with a hole in your spirit. You,” she said, pointing to me in case I didn’t understand who she was referring to, “look like Swiss cheese. You’re all holes. Come back in six months.”

And that was it. I was hustled out the door, herded back into my car, and sent on my cheesy way. I must admit, I did feel like there were holes in my spirit, but in my humble opinion the drill at fault had had a German accent. It had
nothing
to do with psychics or readings. Was there anything wrong with my aura? No. She was probably just incompetent as a psychic. Her Pine-Sol powers had failed her, and she’d blamed
me
. Other psychics could read me just fine—and to prove this I called a few the second I got home.

All right, I admit it. Her words stuck with me. At this point I was averaging at least half a dozen readings a day, the worst I’d ever been, and even I was pretty sure that wasn’t right. As Benjamin Franklin said, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. That was what I did. Day after day after day. And by the way, when a crazy person begins to question her own sanity, you know she’s got problems.

I’d hit rock bottom; I knew this. This wasn’t just your garden-variety heartbreak. This was everything I’d gone through before, multiplied times ten and woven with a despair and hopelessness I’d never known possible. I was lost. I had no direction, no purpose, and the only things that kept me going were the words of people I
paid
to talk to. All the built-up pain from ten years of Hollywood’s rejection and all the failures of my relationships had finally taken their toll, and at last my nerves simply gave out.

I’d reached a dead end. I was single, over thirty, and a failure, and on top of that I had evidently lost my mind somewhere along the way. With horror I noticed I wasn’t even cute anymore. I looked as though I were a heroin addict who’d just gone cold turkey, my body far too thin, my gaunt face now sporting strange reddish patches just beneath my eyes.

In a plea for help I broke down and called my parents. I’d been avoiding them for a while. I knew they’d sense something was wrong, and I hadn’t wanted them to worry. And, sure enough, just as I’d figured would happen, my father was immediately on to me.

“Are you okay?”

“No, Papa, I’m not okay.”

I heard him say something away from the phone, and within seconds my mother jumped on another extension. With both of them listening I came clean. Okay, I omitted the part about checking Wilhelm’s e-mails, which I knew they’d be appalled by, but I did confess my psychic sins. Neither scolded me, neither yelled. They both calmly listened to everything, then told me we’d get through this.

“Remember
fluctuat nec mergitur
?” my father said, trying to sound strong, though his voice split with concern.

“It tosses but it does not sink.” This, this Latin motto of the city of Paris, made everything inside me lurch and my eyes sting. My father always said that these words reminded him of me, because like a ship on the high seas that’s rocked by storm after storm, I continued to stay afloat. But now I couldn’t fight anymore. It was too much. I couldn’t pretend to be okay.

“I know,” I finally said, “but this time I’m sinking.”

My father was silent, and I knew I’d upset him.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” my mother said, always practical. “You’re not sinking. You’re my daughter! We’ll help you!”

I relished their comfort, their words and vows. The Three Musketeers, my father used to call us. And just thinking of that phrase, our nickname, made me feel better—a feeling that was promptly ruined when they made the most wretched of wretched suggestions: Add up how much money you spent on psychics.

I didn’t want to do this. I knew the number was big, and as far as I was concerned that was as much as I needed to know. But my parents, both mathematicians, apparently had penchants for big numbers and continued to insist I add everything up. To get them off my back I agreed, and logged into my account at Psychicdom.

The strange thing about Psychicdom was that they actually listed, month by month, the breakdown of calls and just how much you’d spent. To me that was a little like a drug dealer handing over a baggie of coke along with a printout of the customer’s monthly usage. I was shocked that they didn’t try to hide this information, for surely seeing it in big bold print would dissuade people from calling again…but then again, anyone consumed with readings would most likely be too busy to add up all those pesky little numbers. And seriously, seeing how much I’d spent just made me want to get a reading to see if there was money in my future.

I started adding. And adding. And adding. It took a while; I had to tally each month and then move on to the next. Finally I had numbers that were staggering—and yet still I had to add
them
together. Hands shaking, I punched each month’s tally into the calculator. I hit enter.

Holy crap.

I don’t know what I thought it would be, maybe in the high hundreds? Well, I was wrong. It was, as Gina pointed out when I told her,
more than the value of her car.
I had shelled out thousands (plural) of dollars to essentially make myself miserable and torture myself on a daily basis. Though I’ve never been the queen of logic, this impressed even me as not so wise.

I vowed to stop calling. My parents, God bless them, understood the magnitude of the problem—or perhaps didn’t buy my weak promise never to call again—and immediately came up with a plan. Though my father had to work, my mother would hop on a plane and come stay with me.

The deal was, if I broke down and called, I paid her five dollars. This worked for about a day and a half. I don’t know if my mother noticed, but after that my showers were much longer and the phone was never where she’d left it. I also tended to forget things in the car, random items I had to run downstairs to get right away, and I had to do this with my cell phone, in case, God forbid, there was an emergency in the driveway. What can I say? Old habits die hard.

We finally called off the deal when I tired of the feats of deception and simply handed her a twenty (one I’d borrowed
from her
, as Lord knows I didn’t have cash, and she didn’t take credit cards) before curling up on the couch to make some calls. I obviously wasn’t going to change overnight, but now that I knew how much money I’d spent on psychics, I made every effort to curb my calling. And when I did call, I picked the cheap dollar-a-minute psychics, psychics who used stock photos of clouds and rainbows and aurora lights as their photos. Could they not afford to have their pictures taken? After calling a few times, I was soon convinced that it had nothing to do with money but everything to do with dedication. These cheap psychics weren’t nearly as committed. With longing I thought of my carefree former life, the good old days when I’d called expensive psychics who’d cared enough to go to Sears and get their pictures taken with turbans on their heads or wings strapped to their backs.

Before I could completely relapse, my mother whisked me off to our ranch in New Mexico, a place they’d bought upon leaving the East Coast. Going from a cramped apartment in Los Angeles to a sprawling ranch in New Mexico involves a certain amount of welcomed adjustment. For instance, if you look up in the sky? There are stars. And not the kind that drive big black SUVs and are so skinny you can see through their earlobes. No. We’re talking the celestial kind, and the sky is chock-full of them. Also, whereas in L.A. you could step out your front door, whisper “I’m going to slash the tires of your Prius,” and within seconds about thirty neighbors would be calling the cops in an effort to protect their Prii, that would never happen at the ranch. The ranch was completely isolated. Our nearest neighbor was a good half hour
drive
away.

If I was ever going to find the ability to recover from my addiction to psychics, it was there. Just seeing my father’s face (he pretty much looks like me, but with a beard) made me feel better, and soon I realized I’d stumbled into a rustic rehab, complete with a handful of dogs as a support group. Billy, Annie, Shadow, Attila, and Tyson all gathered around to listen to my stories. Tyson, a black pit bull my father had saved from being shot by some cowboys, was my favorite. I’d pour my heart out to him and he’d take it in, gazing at me with big brown soulful eyes, and I swear he’d nod his head at what I’d said, agreeing in his own little doggy way that
Yes, Wilhelm is the Antichrist.

Part of the recovery process involved
Law & Order
episodes. Many episodes. It was my and Tyson’s favorite show, and my stint at the ranch rehab happened to coincide with a marathon or two. Curled on the couch together, we watched so many episodes that soon the sound of the judge’s gavel—
DMM-DMMMmmm
—became relaxing, as soothing as a meditation chime. For hours we’d be snuggled under a mohair blanket, settled in and refusing to move. My parents would bring us food, but we couldn’t be distracted from our cases. I felt with the utmost conviction that I
had
to be a member of the Special Victim’s Unit. On TV, of course. In addition to the real-life job not paying nearly as much and being a tad dangerous, I also had that instinctual reaction of puking when stressed, a reaction that really wouldn’t be fun for anyone.

Of course, to get on the show I’d have to audition. Auditioning meant facing rejection, and I honestly didn’t know if I could handle more of that right then. Though at the time it paled in comparison to what I was going through with Wilhelm, only months prior I’d been signed by another agency and then promptly dropped. I had a theory that they’d signed me simply so they
could
drop me. Maybe it was some rite of passage for young agents: Sign an actress, give her hope, then crush her very soul. There, now you’re ready to be a Hollywood agent! Honestly, I’d had such heartbreak with my career that I simply couldn’t fathom putting myself out there again. I was
tired
of putting myself out there, tired of the rejection, of auditions. It seemed like that was all I did, audition. Audition for acting roles, audition for agents, then audition men for the role of soul mate. What about
me
? When would I land the role of Sarah Lassez, a woman with a
life
?

Maybe it was the altitude—eight thousand feet above sea level can make one slightly lightheaded—but a week later I started planning my wedding. Not to Wilhelm, of course, but to a nameless, faceless groom who had yet to be cast. Truth be told, he wasn’t that important. This was about the wedding itself. The point was, I was going to get married, and the ranch was where the festivities would take place.

On long nature walks with my mother I perfected the vision. Cowboys would play fiddles as my father and I rode in on an antique horse-drawn carriage—the one sitting in the barn, left over from the ranch’s glory days, clearly destined to be a part of a wedding—the smell of hickory and sage in the air, bunches of wildflowers gathered in pails and placed on long tables amid candles and wine. Beneath hundreds of stars people would dance, the dogs would bark, and I would look positively smashing.