Josie And Jack: A Novel Part 23

"Whatever you say." Joe reached out and touched the tip of my nose lightly. I shrank back instantly. That was something Jack did. "I'll find you later. I still owe you that drink."

The bathroom door closed. Then the music stopped abruptly and I heard Carmichael shouting, "Everyone! The fortuneteller is here!"

The crowd made appreciative noises and headed toward the sound of his voice. Somebody took hold of my arms. It was Lily, her eyes too bright. I wondered if she'd been in the bathroom.

"Josie first!" she called, steering me through the crowd.

Carmichael, standing on a chair, saw us coming. "Oh, absolutely," he said, and then I found myself standing in front of a heavy woman with a hairy upper lip and ma.s.sive upper arms. She was wearing a sleeveless blouse and a long skirt; her dark, snapping eyes took in my garish costume and grew contemptuous.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" Carmichael cried. "For your tarot-rific Halloween entertainment, my very own neighborhood storefront psychic-Madame Olinka!"

Madame Olinka was rummaging in an immense leather bag. She brought out a greasy deck of cards and began to shuffle them on a small table. Her chunky fingers were graceful as they deftly tapped the cards back into an even deck.

"Pay first," she said.

Carmichael grimaced and took out his wallet.

"See?" he said as he counted out twenties and pointed to me. "We've got our own Gypsy here."

Madame Olinka looked at me. "So I see." I felt myself blush. She pointed to the chair that Carmichael had been standing on. "Bring that chair. Sit down."

"No," I said.

But Lily was still at my back. She grabbed the chair, plunked it down inches from Madame Olinka's ma.s.sive knees, and pushed me into it. "Get your fortune told. Maybe you'll learn something useful."

Meanwhile, Madame Olinka had laid three greasy cards face-down between us. The pattern on the backs looked like stained gla.s.s, angular and cleanly drawn. She gestured at the cards. "Frank Lloyd Wright tarot. Very modern."

The crowd laughed and Carmichael said, "Only the best for my parties, people!"

Madame Olinka shrugged. "Modern world, modern tarot." She bent over the cards with an air of great concentration. "I do three-card spread." Her English was unaccented and economical. "First card tells the past-tells how you got here, to be where you are. Second tells where you are now, what you got to do to make things right, if they're not right; and if they are right, it tells you how to keep them that way. Third card tells about the future-but just possibilities," she added, as an afterthought. "Not what will be, necessarily, but what could be, if nothing you do changes. Future isn't in anybody's hands but your own."

"Sure." Somebody put another gla.s.s of wine into my field of vision. I looked up, thinking it must be Jack. Joe the chimney sweep winked down at me.

"Ask if there are going to be any tall dark strangers in your life tonight," he said, putting his hand on my shoulder. It reeked of his cologne. Somewhere in the crowd gathered around us, I heard Lily laugh.

Madame Olinka's eyes flickered. "I think there already is one, right?" Everybody laughed again. Where was Jack? "First card," she said and turned it over. The card showed the silhouette of a man framed by a stylized window. It was hard to tell whether he was part of the window or standing in front of it, because his body was cut into pieces like stained gla.s.s. "The Hermit."

"That's her, all right," I heard Lily say.

The fortuneteller ignored her. "There's a big difference between the outside world and the world inside your head. So you trying to make sense of things, and now, you got a better sense of time, what it do to you."

"I do?" I said.

Madame Olinka shrugged. "This card tells where you come from. Seems to me you got a nasty shock sometime, things aren't what you expected. Now, next card, you see, is the devil." The card showed a woman wearing a long black dress standing on a white hill against a deep blue sky.

"The devil is a woman?" I said.

"Is she ever," Joe said from behind me and squeezed my shoulders. I tried to shrug him away, but when his hands left my shoulders they moved to my hair.

"Sometimes she is." Madame Olinka looked at the cards. "Not so bad. Sounds worse than it is. You surrounded by bad feelings right now. All it means is, you got to be careful. You got to try and think clearly. Don't get all caught up in plans and schemes. Logic, right? Logic is what the devil likes most. You stay away, think with your heart. But," and she pointed a warning finger at me, "this all going on right now. You don't make a choice now, you maybe never get a chance to choose again."

"Choose what?" I said.

"Choose what you gonna do." She sounded a little exasperated. "Choose whether you gonna believe those bad feelings swirling around you like smoke, or you gonna see the world the way it is." Madame Olinka's eyes flickered up to the crowd and she shifted uncomfortably in her chair.

"Lots of people here," she muttered. "More than I thought. Got to hurry. Last card now."

The last card she turned up showed a circle cut into pieces like a pie. The letters under the picture said "Wheel of Fortune." Madame Olinka, unsmiling, tapped the card. "But there you go. No matter what you do, things gonna be okay. You gonna end up with no worries and no tears and no questions."

"Sounds like death," I said.

Madame Olinka sat back in her chair, losing interest. "What I tell you. Tarot doesn't tell the future. Could be death. Or could be happiness."

"My turn," a pink pixie said. I moved quickly to let her sit down. When I stood up, Joe's arm was across my shoulder. I stepped away quickly.

Lily appeared in front of me. "Solve all your problems?" Her blackish lips were curled slightly, and her eyes glittered with that feral look again.

"Sure. Lily, have you seen Jack?"

She was staring, distracted, into the crowd. "He's around. I'll go find him for you." She vanished, leaving me standing stupidly, holding the wine that Joe had given me. For want of anything better to do, I took a sip.

"There you are," Joe's voice said from behind me, and I felt his arm snake around my waist. "How's that wine?"

The party had lost focus. Where was my brother? I moved through the crowd like a ghost. Every face I saw was a stranger's. None of them was Jack. I wanted to go home.

Then I was in the hallway outside the apartment. Carmichael was at one shoulder, Joe at the other. They were holding me up.

"Where are we going?" I said. My tongue felt foreign in my mouth and the walls around me wouldn't stay where they belonged. The men carried me down a flight of stairs. My feet didn't touch the steps.

"Joe's place," Carmichael said. We went through a door and Joe fumbled with keys. "You drank too much. You need to lie down."

"Where's my brother?" They carried me through a door and I felt myself fall onto a big, soft bed. I could feel the smooth cotton bedspread under my hand.

"He's upstairs," Joe said. I heard the sound of a zipper. One of my boots was gone. Then the other. "He knows you're here. It's okay."

"He told us to bring you down here," Carmichael said from somewhere above my head.

"Where-where is he?" The room was spinning.

"He knows you're with us," Joe said. "It's okay."

My limbs were leaden as the two men lifted my arms and pulled my blouse over my head.

"Jack," I heard myself mumble. I was shivering.

"Jack says it's okay," Joe said gently. "Don't worry about Jack."

"Jack-"

"Jack told us to take care of you," I heard Carmichael say. "Jack said we could."

9.

EVERYTHING WAS STILL. My head felt thick and sore and so did my body, but the room had stopped moving. Carmichael was gone; Joe was sitting on the bed next to me, smoking a cigarette. He was naked. I realized that I was naked, too.

The air smelled bad.

Joe looked down at me and said something about being s.e.xy and seventeen.

"Bathroom," I said. Croaked.

He pointed down the hallway with his cigarette.

I tried to stand up. My legs were wobbly. Somehow, I made it. I washed my hands and my face and then I looked in the mirror.

There was makeup smeared under my eyes. My hair was a tangled mess and my eyes were red. There was stubble burn on my cheeks and my chin and my b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and the hair between my legs was sticky and hard. My scalp was sore, as if my hair had been pulled hard.

My skin smelled of Joe's cologne.

I splashed some water on my face and then took a towel from the rack on the wall and wrapped it around myself. Things were still dim around the edges, and on my way back to the bedroom I made a wrong turn and found myself staring at a human-sized cage made from chicken wire and splintering wood. It was filled with excited, darting things, all bright little eyes and pointed little ears and snaky little backs.

Paralyzed with horror, I couldn't breathe.

"You like my ferrets?" Joe emerged from the bedroom, wearing only a pair of tight blue briefs.

"No." The cage reeked of urine-soaked wood and rodent dirt. It was the source of the bad smell in the air. The ma.s.s of ferrets inside it writhed malevolently.

Joe opened the cage and pulled one of them out. It moved sinuously up his arm and curled around his neck. "You want to hold her?"

"No," I said. I couldn't stop shuddering. The ferret's black eyes glittered at me from his shoulder.

"You want to know their names?" Joe pointed at each of the ferrets in turn and said, in a singsong voice, "l.u.s.t, Sloth, Gluttony, Envy, Anger, Greed, Pride; and this little darling here is Ingrid." He reached up behind his head and stroked the ferret's long body. Grinning, he said, "Here, hold her," and put the ferret on my shoulder. Its tiny claws dug into my bare skin as it sniffed at my ear and I felt its fur bristle as it investigated the back of my neck.

Then it was in my hair. My mouth opened and I heard myself scream.

The noise was loud and shrill and broke through my daze. I beat at the hissing ma.s.s of fur with my hands, still screaming, and then there was a sudden sharp pain on the side of my hand. Joe was shouting, "Don't hurt her! Don't hurt her!" and he grabbed me and pushed me fiercely against the wall. He pinned me there with a forearm across my breastbone while he gently pulled strands of my hair away from the ferret. When she was free he lifted her back to his shoulder. She hissed at me again and he held me by the arm and slapped me, twice, hard.

"You stupid b.i.t.c.h. You f.u.c.king hurt her," he said and let his arm fall.

My legs gave out and I slid down, crumpling in a heap at the base of the wall. Joe stalked into the bedroom, the ferret twined around his neck, and came back a moment later carrying my clothes.

He threw them at my face. "Here. Get dressed and get the f.u.c.k out of here."

The ferret blinked at me from his shoulder.

I found my underwear in the pile and pulled them on. There were long smears of blood down the length of my thighs.

"It bit me," I said. "My hand is bleeding." I held it up.

"Get out of here," Joe said again and shook his head in disgust. "f.u.c.king pathetic."

Outside, it was early morning. There was a thick fog clinging to the empty streets and the air was cool and damp in my lungs. I'd wrapped my bleeding hand in one of my Gypsy scarves and was clutching it to my chest. My tights had disappeared and my boots were rubbing painfully against my legs.

Every muscle in my body was tired or sore. My stomach hurt and my head was fuzzy.

Jack said it's okay. Jack said we could.

No. Obviously that hadn't been true. I had been calling for my brother; that's why they'd said that. Because Jack would never.

The doorman in Lily's building was asleep in a chair in the lobby. I rode the elevator up and let myself in. The apartment was dark. I tripped over Lily's suitcases. So she hadn't left yet.

I went to the bathroom and turned the bathtub faucet on, peeling the Gypsy costume off as I went and kicking it into the corner. There was rubbing alcohol in the cabinet; holding my hand over the sink, I poured some directly into the ferret bite. It burned. I hissed and swore.

"You're back," Jack said from the doorway.

"I'm back." I kept my head down. My face was starting to bruise where Joe had hit me. If I turned that side of my face away from Jack, he'd see it in the mirror. If I turned it away from the mirror, it would be facing him.

"We tried to find you before we left." He moved into the bathroom and closed the door. "Maris said you went off with Carmichael. Lily was thrilled."

"I want to take a bath," I said. "Can you leave me alone, please?"

Jack didn't leave. "Did you go off with him?"

"I want to take a bath," I said again.

Jack moved forward quickly and grabbed my shoulder, turning me around to face him. His hair was wild and there were deep bags under his eyes. He stared at me.

"What happened to your face?" His voice was emotionless.

I didn't trust myself to speak. The bathroom was filling with steam that made my eyes water. "Same thing that happened to the rest of me," I managed to say. "I got hit by a truck."

We stared at each other for a long moment, and a memory drifted into my mind.

Does your brother do this?

"Some truck," he said finally and let me go. "Do you want me to stay?"

I told him to go back to bed and sat in the bathtub for a long time, ignoring the sting of the hot water on my hand. Finally I climbed out, dried myself on one of Lily's thick white towels, and went to bed. The sheets felt clean and smooth on my skin, and the pillowcase was cool under my head. I didn't sleep.

A few hours later, I heard voices in the living room. Lily was leaving. Not long afterward the door opened and Jack slid into bed with me. I buried my face in the pillow. He didn't try to touch me.