Fool's Journey (10 page)

           
She laughed dryly and shook her head. She'd turned down
his offer once, but a second time would seem like she was protesting too much.
Someone in her situation refusing help would raise even more suspicion than
answering his questions.

"Okay,"
she agreed, "but I guess I pay your expenses from now on, huh? Coffee's on
me tomorrow."

           
"Sounds fair. I have to earn my keep, though. I'll
tear open the sugar packets."

           
"I don't take sugar."

           
"Purist. I'll be by around eight."

           
"How about afternoon instead of morning?" She
needed time to prepare stories. She shot him a wry grin. "I didn't exactly
get a wonderful night's sleep last night."

           
"What? There was a pea under your mattress?"

           
"Something like that."

           
"Okay,” he agreed. “You're the boss."

           
She led him back to the living room where he paused at
the window to watch the glimmer of the nighttime city for a moment.

           
"Is this in one of your poems?" he asked.

           
"Not in a poem all its own." She stood by his
side and looked out over the panorama. "It's an odd mixture. The lights
against the water are pretty, but there's something else underneath it.
Something sad. A little desperate, maybe. I keep trying, but I can't seem to
get it right. Maybe someday."

           
He nodded and they stood silently a moment longer. Then
he turned to go.

           
"Okay. Lock the door after me. I want to hear it
catch and the chain slide. And don't open it again unless you're sure who's
there. Here's my number," he said, handing her a card. "I've got a
pager. Don't hesitate."

           
She took the card from him and set it on a table.
"Thanks, Manny."

           
Halfway out the door, he stopped and turned back to her.
"One more thing. You got a good scream?"

           
She looked down. Hers had been a childhood of silence.
"I don't really know. I guess I've never needed to —"

           
"Sheltered life," he muttered, shaking his
head. "It's one of your best weapons. Practice in the shower." Then
he lifted his hand and traced a small cross on her forehead with his thumb.
"A sign against the evil eye."

           
A shiver rushed over her for a moment. "Locks,
screams and heavenly protection?"

 
          
 
"Part of the service," he smiled.
"We try to cover all the bases. See you tomorrow."

           
As she closed the door, Deirdre could feel the heat of
the cross he had traced on her forehead. Manny was interesting. Nice, too. Now
that she was more used to him, she liked the way his appearance deceived. So
much like hers, but a kinship he would never know.

It
was the first time she'd felt attracted to anyone in a long time. She'd have to
be careful, and keep reminding herself of everything she could never have.

XII.

           
Manny Ruiz sat behind the wheel of his car, frowning up
at the dim window of Deirdre's apartment. He'd meant to drive off immediately,
get going on the job, but here he sat anyway. Something kept him there, the
thought that maybe, just maybe ...

           
Thought nothing! He had hoped she would open the door and
beckon to him. Hope, fear, and yes, desire had frozen him. Primal feelings all
of them, over-ridden with surprise at himself. Surprise that his ordinarily
level head had been sent spinning at the sight of a pretty face.

           
He shook himself. Pretty was too mundane a word to
describe Deirdre Kildeer. When Aunt Rosa had first told him about her three
years ago, he had automatically envisioned the statue of the Madonna in church,
serene, beautiful and distant. But now that he had seen her for himself, he
felt otherwise. She conjured images of mythic tales, true enough, but she was
flesh and bones nonetheless.
 
He could
still see her, perched nervously on the edge of that single bed, reaching her
hand out to him, as if to …

No.
Her gesture had been innocent. His thoughts were not. Here he was, fantasizing
like a dreamy adolescent.

           
And if she had this effect on someone who had considered
himself immune, what must it be like for her students? Those wet behind the
ears
niños
lounging around campus,
sporting the growth of their first unpromising beards.
Madre de Dios!
 
They didn't
have a prayer.

           
It
reminded him of the time just after he had come to the United States. The
school in rural Oregon hadn't had any English as a Second Language program, so
he'd been assigned to a "special" classroom. Other students called it
the "retard room." He'd despised it, despised the way the teacher's
bright red lips formed big words, loud and slow, as if he were deaf or stupid.
Then, one day, a student teacher had arrived from the state college. She looked
like an angel from heaven, long golden hair and impossibly blue eyes. She'd
spoken to him in Spanish and he'd fallen in love.

           
The other students had been quick to notice how his eyes
followed her when she walked into the cafeteria, how he blushed when she
stopped by his table to say hello. "The beaner's got himself a
girlfriend," they'd smirked. Then they made loud kissing noises on the
backs of their hands that made him want to beat them senseless. But he knew he
couldn't cause trouble, draw attention to himself. He'd barely made it across
the border with Aunt Rosa and, until she found a way for them to stay, they
both had to be as inconspicuous to authority figures as possible.

           
He
shook his head, remembering those times and the torture of unrequited,
adolescent love, made all the more noble by its impossibility. There was no
doubt in his mind of Deirdre's effect on male students—any male for that
matter. Here he sat, as smitten as any teenager. And if someone was a little
twisted—as one of those who surrounded Deirdre clearly was—he didn't like to
think of the possibilities.

           
Still, it wasn't just attraction that held him here.
Something nagged at him in a way he didn't quite understand. Maybe it was her
tone as she'd explained her fears, maybe the tarot cards she'd drawn, maybe
that first sight of her, stricken with fear on her own doorstep.
 

           
Deirdre's refusal to go to the police puzzled him. He
knew all kinds of people who would no more step into a precinct office than
they would comb their hair with pruning shears, but they had good reasons:
outstanding warrants. Deirdre acted like a criminal on the lam, which, for
someone who looked like she'd just walked out of finishing school, was pretty
weird. His aunt had warned him this might be the case, but she hadn't said why.

           
Whatever secrets Deirdre held, he
was more worried about her than he had let on. He glanced up at the window
again and felt the fear scurry across his heart.

XIII.

           
The
next morning, Deirdre slept in and awoke surprised that she had.
Forget-time
. That’s what she had called
sleep as a child. Nightmares hadn't bothered her then. Those had come when she was
awake. It was different now. The nights were full of memories viewed through
dreams, jumbled and disproportionate.

As
she stretched in the pale autumn light, she thought of the sign Manny had made
on her forehead the night before: protection against the evil eye. Perhaps that
accounted for the peaceful night. Once awake, however, there was no returning
to the dreamless refuge of sleep.

           
She had a plan for the morning. Though not fully formed,
it was the seedling of an agenda. She had a visit to make, but on the way she
wanted to stop at the New Age bookstore at the top of the hill. She'd been
thinking about it ever since Mrs. Ruiz had read her cards two days ago. A book
on tarot might tell her some of the things that had been left unsaid then.
The Fool
! She wanted to know more about
The Fool
.

           
It was still raining this morning, a desultory curtain of
gray moisture. She showered quickly, threw on her clothes and an old parka, and
headed up Queen Anne Hill, a strenuous hike at slightly less than a forty-five
degree angle. She was used to it by now, but the sight of ten blocks straight
up was always daunting, especially before she’d had her coffee.

           
It
had been a long time since she’d been in a store like “Forbidden Phoenix.” The
fragrance of sandalwood mingled with the fresh rain each time the door opened
to admit new patrons. If Merlin had been reborn and sent through an MBA
program, he’d have had a store like this. There were racks of slick postcards
depicting glowing orbs dancing on the horizon, aliens proffering elongated
hands in friendship, and unicorns prancing on hillsides. Dreamcatchers hung
from the ceiling, bells jangled on the door and bins of crystals glittered
beneath well-placed track lighting.

Like most
Seattle bookstores with aspirations to survival, it included a latté bar wedged
between the sections on Pure and Natural Living and Addiction. She ordered a
double shot of espresso, straight, and headed for the stacks of books.

           
The
store’s books seemed less commercial than the gift items and psychic
paraphernalia. Some were even obviously handmade, photocopied and stapled
together between sheets of tag board. These she could give more credence to.
She knew of poets who published the same way. Their books were labors of love
and an outgrowth of the need to share.

           
Four entire shelves were devoted to tarot. Some purported
to reflect a traditional stance. Others combined the cards with another
interpretive angle: feminism, dream work, reincarnation. She picked up one of
the latter,
Tarot: A Guide to Karmic
Debt,
and flipped through the pages until she spotted an illustration of
the Fool. A young man in a medieval parti-colored costume stood poised at a
fork in the road with a bemused look on his face. At his feet, a small white
dog looked up at him expectantly. The text beneath read:

           
The Fool warns us
of a juncture when all our dreams betray us. Like an infant cut loose from its
umbilical cord, we are unleashed into the chaos of the universe each time we
are reborn. There will be no permanent return to the womb of self-delusion, for
remember, security is an invention of the mind. Only through our own efforts
and faith in powers greater than our own will we be rescued from the perils
that await us along life’s road. Do not forget that we have been sent here to
learn. We cannot accomplish that goal in a state of comfort. Only by facing
fear, and doing battle with it, do we advance.

           
This was not what she had hoped to see, although the
words struck her with the force of truth. Tarot reading or psychiatric session,
it made no difference. The message was the same: face fear. She had done battle
with fear once before and had nearly lost herself in the process. She didn’t
know if there was enough of her left to confront the enemy once again. But
there would have to be if she were ever to take control, to live a life that
mattered.

           
She closed the book and returned it to the shelf. In her
heart, she knew there was nothing between its pages that would release her from
the battle she sensed was coming. It had been a slim hope at best, the sort of
hope children have as they fall asleep in the first chill of winter, wishing
for snow before its time.

           
As she turned to go, a chime rang out and a door she had
not noticed before opened and a small, elegantly dressed woman emerged,
followed by an enormous man wearing a yarmulke and prayer shawl. An incongruous
ankh hung about his neck from a heavy gold chain.

           
“I don’t know how to thank you,” the woman was saying,
tears welling in her eyes. Odd, since at the same time the woman was pressing
several crisp bills into the man’s hand. That surely was thanks enough.

           
Everyone was grasping for something. She was no better,
for all her years of struggling. No degree on a piece of paper would ensure
that she had learned the lessons that counted. In the end, was everyone a
helpless petitioner, all left empty-handed?

           
To her surprise, the man approached her.

           
“I have a message for you, my dear,” he whispered as he
came beside her. His smile seemed real enough, but his eyes were as pale as a
goat’s.
      
He reached out a plump hand
and captured hers between his bejeweled fingers. "A message from beyond
the grave," he whispered.