Spirit Story - Chapter 3
Spirit Story - Chapter 3
Claire Bennett was already waving before Mara had fully opened the café door, not a discreet lift of the hand.. both arms.... over her head, as though Mara had arrived on a train after the war.
Several people turned to look. Mara stopped just inside the door. Nine years, she thought. Possibly ten. And apparently Claire had acquired no sense of public restraint whatsoever.
“Mara!”
“I see you.”
Claire came around the small table near the window and wrapped both arms around her. Mara had enough time to register perfume, soft sweater, and the fact that Claire’s hair was considerably shorter than it had been the last time she’d seen her before she was being squeezed hard enough to make breathing temporarily optional.
“Oh my God.” Claire pulled back and held her by both shoulders. “Look at you.”
Mara looked down at herself. “What?”
“You look exactly the same.”
“That seems statistically unlikely.”
Claire laughed. There it was. Mara hadn’t realized she’d forgotten the sound, for just a second, the years between them became strangely thin.
Claire still laughed with her whole face. She still tilted her head slightly to the right when she was delighted by something. There were fine lines beside her eyes now, and a few strands of silver near one temple that Mara was almost certain Claire had deliberately left uncovered.
But she was Claire. Older. Different. Immediately familiar.
“You’re wearing lab clothes,” Claire said.
“I’m wearing pants and a shirt.”
“You look like you’re about to test my coffee for contaminants.”
“I could.”
Claire pointed toward the chair. “Sit down before you start collecting specimens.”
Mara sat. There was already a second coffee on the table. She looked at it.
Claire pushed it toward her. “Plain coffee. One cream.”
Mara looked up.
“Do you still drink it that way?”
“Yes.”
Claire looked absurdly pleased. “I remembered.”
“You remembered my coffee order from ten years ago?”
“I remember important things.”
“You forgot to tell me you were coming to town.”
“Details aren’t important.”
Mara smiled and took a sip. It was good. For the next twenty minutes, they did what people did when trying to compress nearly a decade into the space between two coffee cups.
Claire told her about work, then complained about work, then admitted she liked work more than the complaining suggested. She told Mara about people from school whom Mara had not thought about in years.
Mr. Caldwell had retired.
Tina Mercer had four children.
“Four?”
“Four.”
“Intentionally?”
Claire nearly choked on her coffee.
Mara waited.
“You cannot ask people that.”
“I asked you.”
“Still terrible.”
Claire continued.
Someone had moved to Colorado. Someone else had gotten divorced and remarried the same person. A former classmate Mara remembered chiefly for setting a trash can on fire during senior year was now, inexplicably, an elementary school principal.
“No.”
“I swear.”
“He shouldn’t be responsible for children.”
“People change.”
“He set fire to institutional property.”
“He was seventeen.”
“He blamed the trash can.”
Claire put her coffee down. “I have missed you.”
The words came without the laughter. Mara looked at her. Claire smiled, smaller this time. “I have.”
Mara wrapped both hands around her cup. “I’ve missed you too.”
“Well, that’s unfortunate.”
“Why?”
“Because now I’m going to have to start bothering you regularly.”
“I’ll block your number.”
“No, you won’t.”
Mara suspected she wouldn’t. Her phone buzzed on the table. She reached for it immediately.
Claire narrowed her eyes. “Is that the laboratory?”
“Possibly.”
“Mara.”
“It could be Daniel.”
“Is Daniel the machine?”
“No.”
“Then why are you looking at your phone like it contains nuclear launch codes?”
Mara opened the message.
Controls passed. Rerun agrees with previous result. Checking one more thing before I release it. Go be social.
A second message appeared.
Yes, I know you’re reading this while Claire is talking. Put the phone down.
Mara stared at it.
Claire leaned forward. “I like Daniel.”
“You haven’t met Daniel.”
“I like him anyway.”
Mara placed the phone facedown. “There.”
“Was that painful?”
“Very.”
“Good. Personal growth.”
Claire sat back and studied her.
Mara knew that look. She hadn’t seen it in years, but she knew it.
“No.”
Claire blinked innocently. “I haven’t said anything.”
“You’re about to.”
“You don’t know that.”
“You’re doing the face.”
“What face?”
“The face you made before we climbed onto the school roof.”
“We were seventeen.”
“The face hasn’t changed.”
Claire grinned.
“I have an idea.”
“No.”
“You don’t know what it is.”
“That has historically not improved the outcome.”
“Come on.”
“Where?”
Claire reached for her purse. “We’re going on an adventure.”
Mara looked at the time. “I told Daniel I’d be back before four.”
“It’s not even three-thirty.”
“Exactly.”
“Perfect.”
“For what?”
Claire stood. Mara remained seated. Claire picked up Mara’s coffee and held it out to her. Mara looked at the cup, then at Claire. “What are you doing?”
“Broadening your horizons.”
“My horizons are sufficiently broad.”
“They are six feet wide and lined with fluorescent lights.”
“I left work to see you.”
“And I’m touched.”
“I left an unresolved result.”
“Tragic.”
“Claire.”
“Twenty minutes.”
“No.”
“Thirty.”
“That went the wrong direction.”
Claire laughed and started toward the door. Mara did not move.
Claire looked back. “You trusted me when we were sixteen.”
“No. I accompanied you. Those are completely different things.”
“And you survived.”
“Mostly through luck.”
“Come on, Ellison.”
Mara should have gone back to work. She knew that. She had seen Claire. They had caught up. They could exchange numbers they already possessed and make the usual promises about not waiting another decade. She could be back at the laboratory in fifteen minutes.
Instead she stood. Claire beamed.
“I already regret this.”
“You haven’t even seen it yet.”
“That sentence has never preceded anything sensible.”
The adventure was four blocks away, in front of a narrow storefront tucked between a bakery and a shop selling handmade soaps.
Mara read the sign. Then she read it again.
PALMISTRY • INTUITIVE READINGS • SPIRITUAL GUIDANCE
“No.”
Claire grabbed her arm. “You promised.”
“I promised nothing.”
“You got out of the car.”
“Under false pretenses.”
“I said adventure.”
“This is not an adventure.”
“What is it?”
“A commercial transaction based on suggestion, generalized statements, and the customer’s willingness to assign personal meaning to ambiguous information.”
Claire stared at her. "You had that ready very quickly.”
“I work efficiently.”
A smaller sign in the window announced:
NOW OPEN
Mara looked at Claire. “This is the new palm reader?”
“You’ve heard about her?”
“No. The sign says now open.”
“Oh.”
Claire looked mildly disappointed.
“What?”
“For half a second I thought you’d secretly been researching palm readers.”
“I would rather research municipal drainage.”
“You are exactly why we’re doing this.”
“We are not doing this.”
They peered through the window. The interior was unexpectedly plain. No purple velvet. No crystal ball. No beaded curtain. There were two upholstered chairs, several plants, a wooden desk, and a row of small framed prints along one cream-colored wall.
Mara found that almost irritating. If someone intended to operate a palm-reading business, they could at least have the decency to look ridiculous.
“Come on,” Claire said.
“No.”
“I’ll pay.”
“That’s not the objection.”
“Then you have no objection.”
“That isn’t how logic works.”
Claire opened the door. A small bell sounded overhead. Mara remained on the sidewalk. Claire leaned back through the doorway. “Twenty minutes.”
“You said that at the café.”
“And look how much fun you’re having.”
“I am standing outside a palm reader.”
“Broad horizons.”
“Manipulation.”
“Friendship.”
“Coercion.”
Claire smiled. “Please?”
Mara looked at her. Mara sighed. “One reading.”
Claire’s face lit up.
“And when she tells me I have a long life line and a mysterious journey ahead of me, you are buying dinner.”
“Deal.”
Mara stepped through the doorway. The bell sounded again behind her. She glanced automatically at the room.
One entrance.
One hallway at the back.
No obvious cameras.
Claire caught her doing it. “Are you checking the place for surveillance?”
“No.”
“You are.”
“I’m observing.”
Claire laughed. “Of course you are.”
A woman appeared at the end of the hallway. She was perhaps fifty, dressed simply in dark trousers and a loose cream blouse. No scarves. No jangling bracelets. No theatrical makeup. She looked first at Claire.
Then at Mara and stopped. It was brief, so brief that Claire didn’t seem to notice, but Mara did. The woman’s expression changed. Not recognition. Not exactly... something closer to confusion.
Then it was gone. She smiled. “Good afternoon.”
Claire stepped forward. “Hi. We were hoping you had time for a walk-in.”
The woman’s eyes moved back to Mara or one second too long.
“I do.”
Mara smiled politely, of course she did. They were customers. There was nothing unusual about any of this.
Nothing at all.
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