Dottie counted some bills out of the register and put them in an envelope. “She told me to give her earnings from teaching these classes to the community garden project. You know, Althea’s a pain in the butt sometimes, but she donates an awful lot to charity, often anonymously, and devotes much of her time to the church, free of charge.”
“Everyone has a saving grace,” I murmured.
Althea’s sanctimonious attitude still got on my nerves, but I thought I understood her a little more. I’d been trying to learn this lesson for fifty-eight years, but I was reminded of it yet one more time.
Never judge a book by its cover.
* * *
On Friday morning, I drove over to Cyril’s trailer as usual. I’d asked Ronnie the psychic to meet me there. I knew it was a long shot, but I was getting desperate. Everyone else thought she was a little kooky, but I understood the feeling of the connection to the past, to the energy in the universe, to the memories a place could contain, and I was hoping she could give me something, anything, in the way of reassurance.
Ronnie got out of her VW Beetle and teetered through the salvage yard on spiky boots that were laced halfway up her plump legs. She was wearing black skintight leggings, topped off with a short skirt. She also wore a neon-pink down vest, about a dozen necklaces, and gloves that left her fingertips bare. It was an outfit a Goth teenager would love.
Stone the crows! Cyril’s voice was so clear in my ear that I turned, half expecting to see him there. Talk about mutton dressed as lamb.
“See a spirit?” Ronnie grinned at me. Her platinum blond hair was stuffed under a Greek fisherman’s cap, the kind John Lennon might have worn.
I smiled shakily. “Something like that, I guess.”
A shadow flitted across the top of a pile of iron radiators, and she nodded wisely. “Signals from the unknown. They’re all around us.”
I didn’t want to tell her it was probably Cyril’s cat.
She surveyed the yard with its mountain of truck tires, old brass bed frames, rusty automotive signs, broken bicycles, and the odd porcelain toilet.
“Sweet suffering Jesus.”
“Don’t worry, he keeps it nice on the inside.” I opened the door to the trailer and we walked in. I was on high alert for anything that was different from the last time I was there and I left Ronnie in the kitchen while I wandered into the living room.
I glanced back and saw her trailing her fingers across the kitchen counter, the plant in the corner, the newspaper recycle bin. I could just picture Serrano’s reaction if he knew I’d brought a psychic here. You don’t really believe in that crap, do you, Daisy? He dealt in cold hard truths, but we were both truth seekers in a way. We just went about it differently.
As if reading my mind, Ronnie said, “It’s not always facts, and it’s not always scientific. Sometimes youse just gots to believe, Daisy.”
Finally she stopped pacing and stood stock-still in the center of the kitchen. “Oh, he’s alive, I’m sure of it now.” She sounded so confident, relief flooded through me.
I hurried over to her side. “How can you be sure he’s not passed on?” I whispered.
She closed her eyes for a moment as if channeling his spirit, and then opened them and winked at me. “Just joshing with ya. The stove’s still warm. He probably recently made a cup of tea, or at least someone did.” She nodded toward the Boston fern. “Good to see you’ve been watering this, too.”
“But I haven’t. I forgot. I’ve only been feeding the cat.”