Silt, Denver Cereal Volume 8 (13 page)

She heard their CFO, Tres Sierra, call
Blane. He got up from his desk and went to talk to Tres. She went
past his desk to Jacob’s office.

She opened the door.

No Jacob.

She glanced at Blane’s back and went into
the office. Jacob was passed out on the floor. He was lying on his
side behind his desk. He looked like he had fallen out of his
office chair.

Valerie closed the door and sat down near
his head. She rolled him on his back. He made the low guttural
noise he made when he was having a powerful psychic episode. Having
never had one herself, Valerie always saw these as attacks of
vision. She hated that her brother went away from her. She lived in
terror that some day, he wouldn’t come back.

“
I told you to meditate,”
Valerie said in a low voice. She put his head on her lap. “You get
backed up and . . .”

She looked up to see Blane looking in the
office.

“
He’s having a vision,”
Valerie said. “A bad one.”

“
I’ll cancel his
appointments,” Blane said.

Valerie nodded. Blane closed the door.

“
Okay, little brother, I’m
here,” Valerie said. “Don’t get lost coming back.”

Valerie settled in to wait.

Chapter Two Hundred and
Twenty-Nine
Vision

Tuesday morning—10:05 a.m.

Jacob shook his head when Valerie closed the
door. She only did that because she knew it bugged him. He didn’t
want to give her the satisfaction of seeing him get up to open it,
so he waited a few minutes. This gave him a little time to obsess
on his deepest fear—the Marlowe boys would kill Jill.

He shook his head. No one seemed to know.
When he asked Jill, she just smiled at him and told him she wasn’t
Celia. Delphie was as wound up as he was about the whole thing. She
was no help.

He leaned forward to get up
and . . .

He had the sense of falling out of his
chair. He felt the carpet greet him before his body disappeared and
he was a soul walking.

He was standing at the door of what looked
like a bar. He pushed the door open and was assaulted by the stale
odor of old beer, fried food, and warm bodies. The room was full of
laughing drunks sitting at tables and a long bar that backed up
against the right side. A woman near the back pushed a button on
the jukebox and Peggy Lee’s “Hey Big Spender” came on the jukebox.
The woman turned around.

Jacob took a step back. She was the
secretary who had made his life hell. She winked at him and went to
sit down with one of the old guys he’d kicked off the Lipson
Construction board. Shaking his head, he stepped into the crowded
room.

“
Are you looking for
me?”

A woman stood at a table near the center of
the room. She looked like a comic book gypsy. Her skin was dark and
her accent was rough. Her excessive makeup was topped off by a fake
beauty mark near the corner of her mouth. When she gave him a
bright red-lipped smile, the weight her false eye lashes made her
eyes thin slits. She wore a bright blue silk scarf in a turban on
her head, gold rings on every finger, and a sheer bright orange
skirt. With a jangle of at least a hundred gold bangle bracelets,
she gestured to the small table in front of her where a Tarot deck
was spread. He smiled and sat down across from her.

“
Hi Mom,” Jacob
said.

“
I am not your mother,”
the gypsy said. “I am Fifika, gypsy enchantress.”

“
Nice to see you too,
Mom,” Jacob said.

“
Can’t you just play
along?” Celia waved her arm over the cards again.

“
Sure,” Jacob said. “Tell
me why I am here, Fif . . . What was it?”

“
I am Fifika.” Celia
jangled her bracelets as she raised her arm over her
head.

“
Fifika,” Jacob said. “The
hamster’s name? Seriously.”

Celia gave him a stern look.

“
Fine,” Jacob said. “Why
am I here?”

“
You have a question,”
Celia continued in her gypsy accent.

“
I do?” Jacob
asked.

Celia gave him a frustrated look that was
straight out of Valerie’s play book.

“
I’m in a new place,
M . . . uh . . . Fifika,” Jacob said.
“How ‘bout you remind me? Can I have a beer while I’m
here?”

“
No, you can’t drink beer
in visions!” Celia said.

“
I wonder why not,” Jacob
said. “Now
that’s
a good question for Fifika.”

Celia scowled at him.

“
Why am I here, Mom?”
Jacob asked. “I have a company to run
and . . .”

“
You also have a few
questions?” Celia asked.

“
Remind me,” Jacob
said.

“
You were wondering about
the babies?” Celia asked.

“
Yeah, that is weird,”
Jacob nodded. “Why aren’t they killing Jill like I almost killed
you? I adored you, loved you always, but without Delphie’s help you
would have died in childbirth like all the women who’ve had Marlowe
males before you. You and me, we’re the only ones who’ve
survived.”

“
An excellent question,”
Celia said in her Fifika accent. She tried to shuffle the deck of
Tarot cards, but wasn’t able to. “Why won’t you let me
shuffle?”

“
Because I never get much
out of those cards,” Jacob said. “Plus, you know the answer. Just
tell me; no props.”

“
You’ve become very
impatient,” Celia said.

“
I have this feeling,
Mom,” Jacob said. “It feels like everything is teetering on the top
of an apex. If I change the balance in any direction everything
will crash.”

Celia scowled and her comic book gypsy face
folded into itself with only her nose sticking out. If Jacob hadn’t
been so upset, he would have laughed out loud.

“
I keep running from thing
to thing, but I . . .” Jacob leaned forward. “I
don’t have any idea what the problem is or how everything got to be
on this mountain. If I don’t keep running, everything will fall
apart. It’s not logical. Everything is really fine, more than fine.
It’s just . . .”

“
That’s why you’re having
this vision,” Celia said. “To deal with your
uncertainty.”

“
Can’t you just tell me?”
Jacob said.

“
I don’t know everything,”
Celia said. “I can tell you about your boys, though.”

“
Okay,” Jacob
said.

The jukebox started to play “Hey Big
Spender” again and Jacob groaned. Celia laughed.

“
The boys?” Jacob
asked.

“
Your vision, my darling
boy. If you don’t like the song, change it.”

“
How?” Jacob
asked.

“
I remember a time when
you felt like you could do anything in the world,” Celia said. “How
did you get so . . . bound up?”

“
Everything I do now
affects other people,” Jacob said. “If I turn that song off, that
horrible woman will be upset. If I change you back to your regular
self, you’ll be pissed. If I . . .”

He shook his head.

“
It’s like my hands are
tied.” He shook his head. “Like I’m the puppet master. If I move
too far this way,
bam
, everything falls apart.”

“
You don’t want to lose
everything,” Celia said.

“
I don’t want to lose
anything,” Jacob said. “My life is . . . perfect
and . . .”

“
Very hard.” Celia reached
out and stroked his cheek with her red nailed gypsy hand. “I do
know something about this.”

Jacob looked at her.

“
You created all of
this—Jill, the company, your life, your health—because it was what
was good for you. Every choice you made, you made it based on what
was best for you.”

“
I can’t live that kind of
selfish life now,” Jacob said. “I have Jill
and . . .”

Celia tipped her head to the side. Jacob was
struck at how odd it was to see his mother’s love and compassion on
Fifika the gypsy’s face.

“
It’s better for you to
bear this burden, to feel so uncomfortable yourself, so that you
don’t lose everything.” Celia gave him a small smile. “Is that
right?”

Jacob nodded.

“
Remember when we did the
ice crystal thing?” Celia asked. “It seems kind of silly right now
but . . .”

“
Where Val and I loved the
water and hated it?” Jacob nodded. “Val’s love was gorgeous and
mine . . . see that’s what I mean! I have to be
really careful because I can’t love very well.”

“
She’d already met Mike,”
Celia said. “She was in love for the first time.”

“
Oh,” Jacob
said.

“
Hey Big Spender” started
up again on the jukebox and he looked over to see who was causing
the racket. The evil secretary gave him a little wave and went back
to sit down.

“
Turn off the music,”
Celia said.

“
She’s enjoying it,” Jacob
said.

“
You don’t even like her!”
Celia said. “Good Lord.”

“
I don’t like her, but I
don’t want any trouble with her either,” Jacob said. “Jill was
really upset when that happened and she has the boys now
and . . .”

The volume of the music rose. Jacob’s ears
began to ring. He dropped his head on the table.

“
Your vision,” Celia said.
“You’re in control here.”

He groaned.

“
You really never
meditate, do you?” Celia asked.

“
I have a few other things
to do.” Jacob snarled.

“
If you meditated, you
would know that you created this room,” Celia said. “Do you trust
me?”

Jacob sat up to look at her. He nodded.

“
Turn off the music,”
Celia said.

Jacob raised his hand to destroy the
jukebox.

“
Don’t do that,” Celia
said.

“
You just said to turn off
the music,” Jacob said.

“
With your mind, Jacob
Marlowe. Do it with your mind.”

Jacob rolled his eyes and lowered his
arm.

“
Think,” Celia said.
“Music off.”

“
Music off,” Jacob
said.

The jukebox turned off. The evil secretary
got up from her seat and smiled at him. She walked to the
jukebox.

“
Go away,” Jacob
said.

She disappeared.

“
You’re spending so much
energy trying to hold everything together that you’ve become
stunted,” Celia said. “You’re not growing. The business isn’t
growing. Your love with Jill isn’t expanding. You’re not
living.”

“
But . . .”

“
Do you remember what
happened when you hated the water?” Celia asked.

Jacob nodded.

“
You’re too powerful to be
so uncomfortable,” Celia said.

“
I’m uncomfortable because
everything is about to change!”

“
You’re uncomfortable
because you’ve told yourself that things cannot change or you will
lose everything,” Celia said. “Katy is not a tiny fatherless girl
anymore. Jill will have your twins and they will be wonderful. You
can leave Lipson Construction in less than a year. Valerie is
growing. Your Dad will continue to learn and grow.”

“
Why won’t you tell me
what’s happening to Jill and the boys?” Jacob’s voice rose with
desperation.

“
Because you already
know,” Celia said. “You also know what’s wrong. You just won’t let
yourself know. You’d rather stay in this bar, listening to that
horrible song, than actually risk taking a step in your
life.”

“
But I’ll lose
Jill?”

“
What would she say if you
told her that?” Celia asked.

“
She
would . . .” Jacob looked up to see Jill walk into
the room. It wasn’t the Jill he'd married. It was when Jill was
pregnant with Katy. Her long, dark hair was falling out of a braid
down her back. She looked exhausted and so gorgeous. He smiled at
her. She gave him a secret smile and went to take an order at one
of the tables.

“
Why don’t the boys hurt
Jill?” Celia asked in a low voice.

“
Because they have each
other.” Jacob turned to look at her. “They’re not
alone.”

“
Marlowe men are
desperately lonely,” Celia said. “Even at birth, they know they’re
different, unusual. Most of them spend their lives alone, in mines,
and other crevices in the world. You don’t meditate because the
silence feels lonely.”

Jacob felt her words echo through his being.
He nodded, and looked up to see if Jill was still waiting tables.
She looked up from a table near the back and smiled at him.

“
You know, she’s never
been angry with me for having Katy when she was so poor
and . . .” Jacob smiled at Jill.

“
Why do you think that
is?” Celia asked.

Jacob shrugged.

“
Why don’t you ask her?”
Celia asked.

His mother turned around and waved Jill
over. Jill gave him a sweet smile, and turned to Celia.

“
What can I bring you?”
Jill asked.

“
Why haven’t you been
angry with my son for not taking care of you when you were pregnant
with Katy?” Celia asked. “And letting you live hand to mouth when
she was a baby?”