Rock N Soul (11 page)

“I don’t give a fuck who you talk to,” Chris said, raising his voice. “I just don’t know why this chick is suddenly your best friend.”

“Shut
up
,” I said, louder this time. I gave Gemma an apologetic smile. “I think he’s jealous.”

“I am
not
fucking jealous,” he yelled. “I just think we should be focusing on getting me to heaven or wherever. Then once I’m gone you can get all the girls you want.”

Gemma raised her eyebrows in a clear question, and I shrugged. “He thinks we need to focus on figuring out how to help him move on. I guess he has a point.”

“Okay,” she said, drawing the word out. “So . . . if you can talk to him, why do you need a psychic? Isn’t that usually for when you can’t communicate with a spirit?”

I shrugged again. “I can talk to him fine. But he doesn’t know why he’s still here, so he doesn’t know where to start.”

“I guess I can get that,” she said. “But seriously, I’m not an expert on the spirit realm or anything.”

Chris let out a disgusted snort, then walked through the wall and went outside. I frowned at the place where he’d disappeared, then turned back to her. “But you know how to read the cards.”

“Well, yeah. I’m decent at it. But I’m just saying that if you expect me to go all mystic seer on you and tell you what he needs to do to clear up his unfinished business, then you’re going to be pretty disappointed.”

“I just figure it can’t hurt. To get some ideas.”

“I can do another reading,” she said, “just don’t expect to get all sorts of answers from it.”

“I won’t,” I assured her. She picked up her cards and started shuffling them again while I leaned back in my chair a little. “So how does this work?”

“Tarot?” she asked, still shuffling. “Well, it works on the principle that the collective unconscious—you know, the universal spiritual connection we all have with each other and with the world—guides you to draw or choose the cards that will give some clarity to your situation.”

“So the Force.”

She paused. “The Force?”

“Yeah, from Star Wars.”

“I know what the Force is,” she snapped. “But you’re comparing the collective unconscious to hokey religions and ancient weapons.”

I laughed. “Will you marry me?”

Gemma rolled her eyes, and Chris stuck his head through the wall and glared daggers at me. “Oh my God, that’s so fucking lame.”

“Well, come back in here and listen,” I told him. “And stop being a jerk, because she’s going to try to help us.”

Gemma followed my gaze to the wall where Chris’s head was. “He’s over there?”

“Yeah,” I said. “And he’s a jerk. But that’s what you’d expect from a rock star.”

She gave me a “bitch, please” face. “A rock star.”

“Yeah. Christopher Raiden.” I practiced my completely earnest expression.

“You’re being haunted by the ghost of Chris Raiden,” she deadpanned. “Just so I have this straight.”

“It’s not as glamorous as you’d think,” I said. “Mostly he just watches me while I eat scones and bitches about how small my apartment is.”

She pursed her lips. “I want it on the record again that I’m not convinced.”

“But you’ll still help us?”

“I’ll do readings,” she said. “But like I told you, I don’t know how helpful that’s going to be. Tarot isn’t super great at telling the future, really. It’s more about getting insight into the present and the past and what your attitudes should be about things. All of the future stuff turns out pretty vague and only tends to make sense when you think back on it later.”

“We’ll take what we can get,” I said.

Gemma finished shuffling the cards and spread them out in an arc on the table again. “Well, why don’t you ask him to choose a card that represents what you are to him?”

Chris scoffed, and I raised an eyebrow. “What I am to him?”

“Well, like he’s the Knight of Cups for you. That’s how you see him. So how does he see you?” She gestured at the cards.

Chris pouted. “I don’t want to pick one. This is bullshit, and it’s a waste of our time. Let’s go find Witch Hazel and see if she has any pointers.”

“Just pick a card, Chris,” I said. “Please.”

He narrowed his eyes at me, then leaned forward and tapped a card with his finger hard enough that his hand went through the table. “That one. I hope it’s called the Grand Vizier of Douchebaggery, because that’s what you are to me.”

I rolled my eyes and pointed at the card he’d picked. “That one, he says. And just so you know, he’s being very hostile about this whole thing.”

Her eyes widened. “Is he going to start killing people? Is he that kind of ghost?”

“No,” I said. “He’s just a bitch, is all. But I think he was probably like this when he was alive, too.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” She pulled the card out of the arc and flipped it over. “The Hierophant. Interesting.”

I peered down at the card. The man it depicted, sitting between two columns and frowning, didn’t strike me as very pleasant. “This is what he thinks of me?”

“Yes,” she said. “The Hierophant is all about . . . traditional values. Doing what’s right from a religious or moral sense.”

I looked over at Chris. “So he sees me as, like, a moral compass?”

“A moral compass that doesn’t point north,” he muttered.

“Was that a
Pirates of the Caribbean
reference?” I asked him.

“You’re not the only one who knows some pop culture,” he snapped. “Don’t sound so fucking surprised.”

I sighed and turned back to Gemma. “I don’t think he agrees with your interpretation.”

Gemma shrugged. “Well, the card’s about traditional values. But it’s not necessarily totally good. Given that the cards you picked about him were all about his narcissism and drug use, this could mean that he thinks you’re being too high and mighty. Judging him too much and not trying to see his point of view.”

Chris smirked. “That’s exactly right. Maybe I like this chick after all.”

I sat back in my chair and let out a huff of breath. “I guess I could be nicer to him.”

“Damn right you could,” Chris said. “And you can start right now.”

“If I’m going to start being nicer to you, then you have to stop bitching about how worried about my tips I am,” I countered.

Chris rolled his eyes. “You need to let go of your materialistic concerns and live life without spending all your time thinking about money.”

“
I’m
materialistic?” I crossed my arms and glared at him. “You’re the one who wears designer underwear and drinks champagne that costs more than my rent.”

“I don’t really drink that much champagne.”

“Yeah, because you’re too busy guzzling Jack,” I snapped.

“Only if he asks nicely,” he shot back.

“Well—Wait. What?”

He widened his eyes at me super innocently. “What?”

“Are you talking about giving guys BJs?”

Gemma waved her hands in the air in a no gesture. “Okay, okay, listening to one side of this conversation is weird enough without the sex talk coming out.”

“The sex talk isn’t the only thing coming out, apparently,” I muttered.

“It was a joke, you douche bag,” Chris said. “Perhaps you’ve heard one or two of them before. I recommend knock-knock jokes if you’re a beginner.”

“Shut up,” I said.

Gemma sighed. “Look, I’m not a couples’ counselor. I’m just a finance major with a deck of tarot cards.”

“Finance, huh?” I said. “I guess I get it. Wanting to make money.”

Chris groaned. “Always with the money and never with the not-money.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “You know, the only people who have the luxury to
not
talk about money are people who have lots of it.”

“Enough!” Gemma almost yelled. “I’m only hearing half of this and it’s still exasperating.
You
,” she pointed at me, “stop making everything about how he doesn’t understand the poor life. And
you
,” she pointed vaguely in Chris’s direction, “I don’t even know what you’re saying, but it sounds like you’re intentionally antagonizing him and you need to quit.”

Chris and I both smirked at each other, then frowned almost in unison.

“Anyway,” Gemma continued. “Tell him to pick two cards that show what he thinks
your
issues are. Even though I think it’s really frickin’ obvious.”

Chris touched a card, then thought for a moment before choosing another card. I pointed at them and Gemma pulled them out of the deck. She flipped over the first card.

“The Five of Pentacles,” she announced. “Of course. The poverty card. The card of financial strain and hard times and things like that.”

“That’s pretty on the nose, don’t you think?” I asked, mimicking Chris’s voice from earlier.

She shrugged. “You picked textbook addiction cards for him. It makes sense that he’d pick a classic financial struggle card for you.”

“She’s right,” Chris said. “You subconsciously pick bitchy cards for me, I subconsciously pick bitchy cards for you right back.”

I rolled my eyes again. “Go on,” I told Gemma.

She flipped over the second card. “The Wheel of Fortune, reversed.”

“The Wheel of Fortune?” Chris scoffed. “Seriously? Is there a Vanna White card too?”

“He just made a Vanna White reference,” I told her. “I feel like you should know that.”

She sighed. “I get that all the time. But no. The Wheel of Fortune has to do with change and growth and finding new paths in life that fulfill you.”

“Ha!” I said, pointing at Chris. “So you think I’m on the right path.”

Chris opened his mouth, probably to argue, but Gemma spoke first. “Actually . . . that’s what the upright Wheel of Fortune means. Reversed, it means stagnation. Refusal to change. Staying in a bad situation because you don’t want to put forth the effort to move from where you are.”

“Which is true,” Chris said. “I mean, you’re a bellboy.”

“And you’re a bastard,” I retorted.

“Listen, guys, I really do have to go,” Gemma said. “But here . . . let me give you my number. We’ll meet up again in a few days and do some more readings if you want.”

I pulled out my phone and let her type her number into it. Then she gave me the phone back, smiled, and left the store.

“Good riddance,” Chris said.

I punched him. It didn’t do any good.

“You can’t ignore me forever,” Chris said, waving his hands through the frying pan I was trying to make an omelet in.

I didn’t answer. I’d been getting pretty good at not focusing my eyes on him and not responding to what he said. It had been four hours since I’d stormed out of the new age bookstore and started willfully ignoring him, and it was clearly starting to bug the guy. “I think you’re being really childish,” he said, stepping into the stove so that his torso was sticking out of the burner.

I set my jaw but didn’t say anything. If he was going to be a bastard and make everything about how I’m too obsessed with money, he could just spend some time stewing about how nobody can talk to him if I’m not there.

“And it’s just bitchy not to let me watch any more TV,” he went on. “I’m dying here. Well, I’m already dead. But you get the point.”

I’d thought about putting in one of Carmen’s concert DVDs and making him feel awkward by forcing him to watch himself on stage, but knowing Chris he’d just find the whole thing fascinating. I wondered if he fantasized about himself while he jacked off.

“I have all these things I could tell you if you would talk to me and be nice to me,” he said, letting his voice melt into a cajoling tone.

I flipped the omelet and got the bottle of apple juice out of the fridge. I considered pouring it into a glass, then thought about how much I hated washing dishes, so I just picked up the jug and put it on the end table beside my spot on the couch.

“Like about who I’ve seen naked,” he said. “Beautiful women. You’d recognize some of the names. Maybe even a
lot
of the names.”

I went back to the stove and finished cooking the omelet, then put it on a plate and went to the couch. I picked up the remote and tried to think of the most boring thing I could possibly make him watch, then decided on C-SPAN. It seemed like something that a narcissistic rock star wouldn’t like one bit.

Chris came over and sat on the couch beside me. “You wouldn’t believe the freaky shit some of those actresses are into, man. And don’t even get me started on the hip-hop ladies and the professional tennis players.”

I took a bite of my omelet and tried to look engrossed in whatever the hell the old white guys on C-SPAN were talking about.

“Like . . . who is it you have a thing for? Zoe Saldana? Totally fucked her.”

And really, that was too much. I snapped my eyes over to him and scowled. “You’re lying.”

“Well, yeah,” he said, smirking obnoxiously now that he’d busted through my concentration. “Of course I’m lying. She wouldn’t give me the time of day. But! I’m not lying about having a lot of really impressive conquests.”

“I’m sure,” I said, determinedly turning my eyes back to C-SPAN.

But now that I’d broken my silent treatment, he just talked
more
. “I do have lots of conquests. Seriously. And I can prove it. I’ve got video.”