The Last Romantics(79)

I had expected this response. Nathan was a man of science, cause and effect, hypotheses and evidence, and Caroline was, too, in her crafty, practical way. Canned peaches for winter, homemade pumpkin costumes for the twins, beetles kept by Louis in a glass terrarium and released back onto the grass after a night’s observation. She did not teach magic to her children. She did not even take them to church.

“Please, Caroline,” I urged. “I think there’s something to it. I don’t know how to explain.” My face became hot, I felt my eyes fill. “Please trust me on this.”

Caroline stood up and pushed the curtain back from the window. It was March. A mammoth pile of dirty, crusty snow sat on the front lawn, build-up from the town plow’s repeated road clearing that winter. The house looked so different from when I’d first seen it. What, I wondered, had happened to all those cats?

“Okay, okay,” Caroline said, still looking out the window. “We can do whatever it is you want, psychic woo-woo, medium, whatever. But you’ll have to set it up. I just can’t. Beatrix started seeing a reading tutor. Louis hates junior high. And we need a new roof, did I tell you? I just don’t have any more time, Fiona.”

“Will you pay?” I asked. My finances remained messy; the money given to me by Noni and Renee kept me afloat, but barely.

Caroline sighed again, louder this time, then nodded.

I assured Caroline I would take the lead. I would find someone suitable, brief him or her, handle the communication. Invoices would be sent to Caroline’s home address.

On TV the clairvoyant Mimi Prince looked wise and kind in a grandmotherly way, with big, wet eyes and a jowly, creased face. She appeared regularly on a cable show that followed a photogenic police team as they searched for missing persons. The show consistently used the same formula: First the detectives met with the bereft family members, lovers, and friends to get an impression of the missing person. An aspiring ballerina who loved her pet cockatoo and homemade pizza. A quirky computer scientist with dreadlocks and a fondness for bridge. The team then employed the tools of science and technology—fingerprint analysis, cell-phone tracking—in the search; these would inevitably fail. And it was always at this point in the program when Mimi Prince arrived. As family members looked on, she would hold an item belonging to the missing person—a sweater, say, or a hairbrush—in one hand, and the other she would place over her heart. The vibrations of love are strong, a voice-over would intone. They travel through space and time. Some say they even connect the living and the dead. The camera would zoom to her fiercely concentrated face, and then a dawning would occur, an epiphany. She would open her eyes with a start, and before the next commercial break the missing person would be found, sometimes dead, sometimes alive, but always with a photogenic ending of tears, catharsis, closure.

It was unclear to me if the stories depicted were entirely fictional or based on fact, but it didn’t matter. At the end of every episode, I too was moved to tears. Here was what we needed, I thought. Someone who would understand the sensitivities and complexity of our interest in Luna. Someone who would feel the vibrations of love.

Mimi Prince in person differed from her television character. This Mimi Prince was shorter, wider, more abrupt. This Mimi Prince required payment up front in cash and Caroline’s signature on a ten-page contract that released Clairvoyant International LLC from all liability and offered no guarantee as to outcome.

Caroline signed the contract. Mimi Prince closed her eyes and began to hum at a low, even pitch, dreary as a dial tone. We were sitting in Caroline’s living room, Mimi and Caroline on the big turquoise couch, me on a three-legged wooden stool that Beatrix used for cello practice. Items related to Luna and Joe were arranged on the coffee table: the Polaroid, a crinkled receipt from the Betsy Hotel, a hair elastic with one lone black strand caught in the metal fastening. In one hand Mimi gripped the velvet ring box; the other hand rested on her heart.

I was too antsy to be comfortable. One window was cracked open, and the faintest breeze stirred the curtains. I watched it move and thought surely this was a sign of significance, an indication that Mimi’s efforts—strenuous, as evidenced by the uptick in her humming—would bear fruit. Luna Hernandez, where are you? I thought fiercely, and closed my eyes.

We sat like that for a long spell. The hum continued with only the briefest pauses to mark Mimi’s inhalations.

Then, after forty-five minutes, Mimi Prince went silent. She opened her eyes.

“The trail is cold,” she declared. “No vibrations, no voices. That usually means the subject’s dead.”

“What?” I said. I felt myself go cold, a sensation that began at the base of my spine and spread upward and out through my chest and limbs and fingertips. Luna could not be dead.

“This doesn’t always work out, honey,” Mimi said in a practiced, soothing way as she patted my hand and then Caroline’s.

“So that’s it?” Caroline asked.

“Yes, dear, I’m afraid so.” And then Mimi Prince looked at her watch and announced that she was late for her next meeting.

Without a word Caroline showed her to the door. When Caroline returned to the living room, she said, “Okay, Fiona, we tried it your way. Now we need to get serious. We’re hiring a private investigator, end of story.” Caroline began pacing the room, straightening and tidying things with quick, efficient movements. Folding a blanket, picking up a doll, dropping an old magazine into the trash. Today Caroline was wearing a pale blue pullover sweater and a jean skirt that went to her knees, her hair brushed and up in a neat ponytail. In all respects she appeared put together, but I registered an unsteadiness.