Deja Who (Insighter #1)(26)

“It certainly sounded stressful,” Archer agreed, and ate a carrot.

They’d only interrupted her tales of woe twice: Archer to ask what happened to Marie Antoinette’s daughter (Madame Royale Marie-Thérèse, later dauphine of France, survived the Reign of Terror, was the queen of France for twenty minutes, and lived into her seventies), and Cat to comment that Leah’s past lives definitely proved that no matter when you lived or what you lived through, job security was paramount.

“Really?” Archer asked, leaning back to look up at Cat, his eyebrows arching in amusement. “That’s what you’re taking away from all this? When the peasants come to cut off your head, be glad you at least kept your job?”

“It’s tough out there,” Cat replied, unruffled by the teasing. “Job hunting sucks. Can’t take steady work for granted in this economy. Or any other economy, come to think of it. I mean, jeez, even being a member of the ruling family isn’t a guarantee. Education is key, y’know.”

“Anyway,” Leah continued, “I think that’s the thread. I think maybe I keep getting murdered because I can’t not be passive. Or,” she added when Archer and Cat opened their mouths, “when I try to do something, anything, and it not only fails, people die. So I’ve basically taught myself never to get involved, never to interfere.” She shook her head in frustration. “Insighting is the perfect job for me. Like Cat said: part of my nature.” Her horrible, prickly, bitchy nature, which, incredibly, neither Cat nor Archer seemed to mind. So far. She turned to Archer. “Speaking of natures, have you ever seen an Insighter? Professionally?”

“Uh . . . no.”

That was an odd pause. Almost like he was worried she’d be offended. But Leah, who confronted former serial killers, rapists, child killers, dictators, monarchs, and disgruntled postal workers, and had been insulted by the best (and the worst) was almost impossible to offend. When you knew you were going to be eventually murdered, it was hard to work up a state of pissed-off if someone called you a bitch.

She frowned down at him; he was still sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of the bench. “You’ve never seen an Insighter? Not even once? Most parents bring their kids in at least once, so they can be on the lookout for . . . well . . . anything, really.” Unless, of course, they were too busy hauling their preschooler to cattle calls for juice commercials and catalog shoots for back-to-school clothes and runway tryouts for designer swimwear shows.

The flip side of parents like Nellie, who had no use for Insight and refused to acknowledge anyone’s view but her own, were helicopter parents. Choppers were obsessed with their children’s past lives, and diagnosed same on their own. “She was born on September 11, two hours after the second tower fell, which totally explains her fear of heights! And possibly her fear of fire, planes, and OSHA regulations.”

“But she isn’t afraid of heights or fire or planes or OSHA regulations.”

“Yes, but she will be. It’s inevitable; she can’t fight her past. It will eventually devour her!”

“I’m not sure that’s—”

“So what are you going to do about it? Huh? What? Huh? You take Blue Cross/Blue Shield, right? Right? Right?”

I think in my baby’s past life I was there, too, except I was Joan Crawford and that’s why my baby is scared of wire coat hangers.

My preschooler has the attention span of a four-year-old! Obviously he had ADHD in a past life, so you’d better get him started on Ritalin ASAP.

My teenage son is moody and hates me, but when he was little he was nice and he loved me. Something has gone terribly wrong in his past life and we have to fix it because it’s not normal for teenagers to fight with their parents like this!

It was a little like patients studying the Internet to diagnose themselves, then telling the doctor the diagnosis and expecting him to fall in line and whip out the scrip pad.

“Nope,” Archer was saying. “I’ve never needed an Insighter.”

“Oh. One of those, hmm?”

“Ah, man,” Cat sighed.

“What, ‘one of those’?”

“Don’t do it, Archer,” Cat added.

“You know what ‘one of those,’” Leah replied. “Are you?”

“It’s nothing personal. You’re great. It’s just, your job sucks.” He shifted his position. “I think, in general, people can solve their own problems. Or at least be able to try. I think looking back and having regret after regret, being reminded of regret after regret, isn’t helpful and . . . and that’s all, I guess.”

“You might as well finish,” Cat said kindly as Leah stared fixedly down at him.

“Well, basically, most Insighters are delusional snoops. ‘Only I can fix you! Only by beating you over the head with all the fuck-ups you can do absolutely nothing about can you get your life in order, so let’s hop to it. That’ll be $149.72, by the way.’” At the look on Leah’s face, he added weakly, “No offense?”

“We never tell a client to hop to it.” She plopped down on the ground in front of him. “Well. I can’t say I’ve never heard that before. Which explains why I can’t see you. You’re rasa, yes?” Slang for tabula rasa, the blank slate. Or, to put it another way . . . “I can’t see your past lives because your brain isn’t wired to access them. You’re . . .” She paused and groped for the appropriate phrasing.