Beyond Recognition

front door to make sure the driver was indeed inside for a reading, and began his assessment. The sticker on the windshield was an employee parking permit for the U. There were three of them, all different colors, different years. Looking through the passenger’s side window he spotted a Victoria’s Secret catalog addressed to a Wendy Davis at a street address that placed her about a mile north of Green Lake. On the floor were two mashed candy boxes for SourBoys. In the back seat, a baby’s safety seat was strapped in facing backward, looking at a rusted dog guard wire wall that sequestered the empty rear area from the front of the car.

He glanced again at the house, lifted the walkie-talkie, carefully checking the volume knob, and, bringing his lips close, spoke the woman’s name clearly-“Wendy Davis”-followed by a description of the cluttered condition of the car’s interior, the fact that it was an old beat-up Ford, the presence of a child’s seat, and the existence of candy boxes indicating the likelihood of an older child as well. “Hold it,” he said, noticing the newspaper wedged between the plastic median and the driver’s seat. He came around the vehicle quickly. The paper was folded open to the want ads. A number of apartment rentals were circled. He reported this important find. “She’s house hunting. It’s yesterday’s paper.” He wouldn’t open the car door, no matter how tempted; that was against the law and could get Emily into serious trouble, which would ruin everything. He wondered if some of the employment want ads were circled as well, but he would never know.

Bingo! he thought, as he caught sight of the two passport-size color photos stuck into the plastic by the car’s speedometer. One was of a baby boy, the other of an older boy, perhaps five years old. He reported this, as well as the fact that the woman smoked Marlboro Lights and drank cans of decaffeinated Diet Coke. “Maybe religious,” he added, noticing the small black cross that hung from the rearview mirror. He chastised himself for not noticing this right away. Sometimes he missed the obvious stuff in his determination to see absolutely everything. The challenge was to build a life out of a car’s interior. Some people made it easier than others.

This had been a pretty good haul. He returned by the back door into the kitchen. Soft New Age music purred from the other room, played in part to cover any chance of a customer hearing the earpiece: xylophone, flute, and guitar. A far cry from the Springsteen that Jack played when he was working the girls in his bedroom. “Born to Run” was what he always started with. If he was really drunk, he played air guitar along with the record and shouted his tone-deaf melodies, believing he was actually singing. Ben hated him. He had never hated anything or anyone before Jack’s arrival on the scene.

He heard Emily’s voice cut through the soft patter of the music as she told her customer, “I’m getting an image of a problem … a worry … a decision, perhaps ….”

“Yes!” the unseen woman gasped in astonishment.

“And one … no, two boys. Children.”

“Oh, my God!” the woman exclaimed.

“Your children?”

“Yeah! I can’t believe-”

“An infant …”

“Charles. Charlie,” Wendy Davis said.

“And the other is older-what? — four or five?”

“Harry! Just turned five.”

“You’re concerned for them,” the fortune teller said.

“Yeah.”

“I see suitcases … cardboard boxes…. Moving, are we?”

The customer released an audible gasp. “Oh, my gosh,” she said. “You’re for real!” She chuckled, sounding giddy. “I’m sorry. Of course you’re for real. I only meant that … I don’t know … it’s just that-” she laughed again-“I mean, a psychic and all…. Oh, my gosh. How did you …? But of course … I can’t believe this!”

“Looking for a new place to live,” Emily said patiently. “Concerned for the children over the move. You live near a lake-”

“Green Lake,” the woman shouted-shouted! — enthusiastically. “Yes! Yes!” she continued, sounding like one of the guy’s bedroom partners on the way to a high-pitched scream. “I can’t believe this!”

Ben felt proud that he had done such a good job. Sometimes the car turned out to be borrowed and the session a complete disaster; those customers rarely returned. But this one would be back, he felt certain of it. Emily would be thrilled, and he lived for her praise.

The customer stayed longer than the fifteen minutes promised her for her ten dollars. This upped Emily’s fee to twenty, but there weren’t any complaints. Judging by her expression as she left, Ben believed Wendy Davis was noticeably happier, which made him feel good. This was Emily’s stated goal. She only added her ominous warnings at the end of the session to keep the customer returning. “I see something darker in the near future” was her typical line. Something about work, or the family, or health-those were the real showstoppers, the live worm on the end of the hook that proved irresistible. And like a hairdresser or a doctor, Emily kept an appointment book. She could “fit you in” if you were lucky. Every one of her customers was lucky.

“You need something to eat,” she announced, as she entered the kitchen. One of Emily’s passions was food; she seemed to him to always be around the refrigerator, inspecting its contents. “You’re far too skinny.”

“I’m twelve years old,” Ben declared. He used this argument on Jack, but to mixed results.

“Too skinny,” she repeated. “I’ve got some pork loin for you,” she exclaimed. “My Aunt Bernice’s recipe. Marinated in lemon juice, oregano, salt, and pepper…. Do you like garlic? Yeah, you do,” she answered rhetorically. “Olive oil.” She pulled the thing out of the refrigerator and set it on the counter. It was just a tube of pink meat with soggy green specks all over it. It looked disgusting. “Don’t worry,” she said, catching his expression, “it’s better than it looks.”

An hour later they were eating lunch at her kitchen table. He liked the mashed potatoes most of all. “We can have the leftovers for dinner,” she said, talking with her mouth full of food. If he did it she screamed at him, but she did it all the time. He liked Emily-loved her, maybe-but he didn’t understand her. Not completely.

He was glad she mentioned dinner, because it meant he didn’t have to think about going there. Jack would leave for the bar by seven; it would be safe to go back then. If he was lucky, Emily would ask him to sleep over. She let him do this about twice a week. Not once had Jack asked him about where he went or where he stayed-his only complaint would be if a chore didn’t get done, and those complaints were often of the physical variety, so Ben kept up on the chores.

“It’s even better as a leftover,” she promised. She drank pink wine that she poured from a paper box in the fridge. After lunch they did the dishes together. Emily put on some more lipstick and said she was going outside to “feed the cat.” The cat would have been more correctly named Marlboro, but she pretended Ben didn’t know this.

She made Ben read to her as she sat in her favorite chair, and she fell asleep with a smile on her face. The nap lasted about twenty minutes, at which point Ben heard a car pull in the driveway.

“Another one,” he said, gently shaking her by the upper arm. She was softer than anything, anyone, he had ever touched. She was magical. Special. He’d seen her know things that no one could ever possibly know. It didn’t happen all the time, but when it did there was no explaining it. She had a power. “A gift,” she called it. But it was more than that. It was a vision, an ability to see ahead, like a dream but real. Magic.

“A gal’s got to earn a living,” she said, coming out of the chair and stroking the wrinkles out of her clothes. She patted Ben on the head affectionately. “Your reading’s getting better,” she said. “You might work out after all,” she teased. “I might keep you yet.”

Ben waited for the car to pull up and the engine to go quiet. Then he slipped out back, prepared to do his job.

4

“Would you like a cup of coffee?”

The young kid turned red in the face and corrected himself. “Tea?”