Leaving Time(8)

What is 14R? An age requirement? A bra size?

I’m nervous about leaving my bike on the street, since I don’t have a lock for it—I never have to lock it up at school or on Main Street or anywhere else I normally go—so I haul it into the corridor to the left of the bar entrance and drag it up the stairs, which smell like beer and sweat. At the top is a small foyer. One door is labeled 14R and has a sign on the front: READINGS BY SERENITY.

The foyer walls are covered with peeling velveteen wallpaper. Yellow stains bloom on the ceiling, and it smells like too much potpourri. There’s a rickety side table propped up on a phone book for balance. On it is a china dish filled with business cards: SERENITY JONES, PSYCHIC.

There’s not much room for me and a bike in the little foyer. I jostle it in a stilted half circle, trying to lean it against the wall.

I can hear the muffled voices of two women on the other side of the interior door. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to knock, to tell Serenity I’m here. Then I realize that if she is any good at her job, she must already know.

Just in case, though, I cough. Loudly.

With the bike frame balanced against my hip, I press my ear against the door.

You’re troubled by a very big decision.

There is a gasp, a second voice. How did you know?

You have serious doubts that what you decide is going to be the right path.

The other voice, again: It’s been so hard, without Bert.

He’s here now. And he wants you to know that you can trust your heart.

There is a pause. That doesn’t sound like Bert.

Of course not. That was someone else who’s watching over you.

Auntie Louise?

Yes! She says you were always her favorite.

I can’t help it; I snort. Way to recover, Serenity, I think.

Maybe she’s heard me laugh, because there’s no more conversation coming from the other side of the door. I lean closer to listen more carefully, and knock the bike off balance. Stumbling to keep my footing, I trip over my mother’s scarf, which has unraveled. The bicycle—and I—crash into the little table, and the bowl falls off and shatters.

The door is yanked open, and I look up from where I’m crouched in the pretzel of bike frame, trying to gather the pieces. “What’s going on out here?”

Serenity Jones is tall, with a swirl of pink cotton-candy hair piled high on her head. Her lipstick matches her coiffure. I have this weird feeling that I’ve met her before. “Are you Serenity?”

“Who’s asking?”

“Shouldn’t you know?”

“I’m prescient, not omniscient. If I were omniscient this would be Park Avenue and I’d be squirreling my dividends away in the Caymans.” Her voice sounds overused, like a couch with its springs busted. Then she notices the broken bits of china in my hand. “Are you kidding me? That was my grandmother’s scrying bowl!”

I have no idea what a scrying bowl is. I just know I’m in deep trouble. “I’m sorry. It was an accident …”

“Do you have any idea how old this is? It’s a family heirloom! Thank Baby Jesus my mother isn’t alive to see this.” She grabs for the pieces, fitting the edges together as if they might magically stick.

“I could try to fix it—”

“Unless you’re a magician, I don’t see that happening. My mother and my granny are both rolling in their graves, all because you don’t have the sense God gave a weasel.”

“If it was so precious, why did you just leave it sitting around in your entryway?”

“Why did you bring a bicycle into a room the size of a closet?”

“I thought it would get stolen if I left it in the hall,” I say, getting to my feet. “Look, I’ll pay for your bowl.”

“Sugar, your Girl Scout cookie money can’t cover the cost of an antique from 1858.”

“I’m not selling Girl Scout cookies,” I tell her. “I’m here for a reading.”

That stops her in her tracks. “I don’t do kids.”

Don’t or won’t? “I’m older than I look.” This is a fact. Everyone assumes I’m still in fifth grade, instead of eighth.

The woman who was inside having a reading suddenly is framed in the doorway, too. “Serenity? Are you all right?”

Serenity stumbles, tripping over the frame of my bike. “I’m fine.” She smiles tightly at me. “I can’t help you.”

“I beg your pardon?” the client says.

“Not you, Mrs. Langham,” Serenity answers, and then she mutters to me: “If you don’t leave right now, I’ll call the cops and press charges.”

Maybe Mrs. Langham doesn’t want a psychic who’s mean to kids; maybe she just doesn’t want to be around when the police come. For whatever reason, she looks at Serenity as if she is about to say something, but then edges past us both and bolts down the flight of stairs.

“Oh great,” Serenity mutters. “Now you owe me for a priceless heirloom and the ten bucks I just lost.”

“I’ll pay double,” I blurt out. I have sixty-eight dollars. It’s every penny I’ve made this year from babysitting, and I’m saving it for a private eye. I’m not convinced Serenity is the real deal. But I’d be willing to part with twenty dollars to find out.