While it was true that Bernie was a bad psychic, she was a great friend. That she was slightly delusional and lived with her head in the clouds made her all the more endearing to me. That she thought she was a good psychic would be a nice case study in human psychology, one that I would leave to the experts. Perhaps even a team of experts.
Truth was, I found her hilarious. But not in a way that mocked her. She was genuinely caring. And certainly believed she had special powers.
Maybe I was enabling her, but I didn’t have the heart to tell her what I really thought of her psychic powers. Anyway, while the waitress brought over our mango margaritas, or mangoritas, Bernie was just wrapping up a story.
“...so I told him that I saw him living in Florida at the beach.”
“He must have liked that,” I said.
“He said he burns easily and has to do all he can to stay out of the sun.”
“But you saw him living at the beach,” I said, “in Florida?”
“Right. Working as a, you know, one of those smartly dressed young men who serve you drinks on the sand...”
“A cabana boy?” I laughed. Loudly. I might have even snorted. Some at The Whisper Lounge looked at us and frowned. On second thought, maybe coming to The Whisper Lounge, with its dark mahogany walls and high back booths, wasn’t a good idea.
“Right. A cabana boy. Serving drinks on the beach. Not a care in the world. Living in paradise.”
“What does he do now?” I asked, sipping from my drink, and enjoying the hell out of this conversation. Perhaps too much. Yes, I thought I enabled her. Did that make me a bad person?
“He works in radio. Has a nice voice. Sounded familiar, actually.”
I nodded and tried not to smile. “Would you say he works his dream job now, maybe?”
“Well, maybe,” said Bernie, shrugging her rounded shoulders. “But he’s obviously not happy. Why else did he call me?”
“True,” I said. “Why did he call you?”
“He said he had a question about his love life, wondering if he would ever find ‘the one.’”
“And you told him to quit his radio show and work as a cabana boy in Florida, a man who says he needs to stay out of the sun because he burns easily?”
Bernie shrugged again and finished the rest of her mangorita. “What can I say, Allie?” She had her nickname for me, too. “Spirit works in mysterious ways.” She waved until she caught the server’s attention. “I’m only the messenger.”
“You are something,” I said into my own drink. Luckily, she didn’t hear me.
“So, what’s new with you, Allie Cat?” she asked after placing another drink order with our server, this time requesting that the bartender be a little more generous with the booze.
When the server was gone, I said, “I’m working with a client.”
“A client? What kind of client?”
“I met him through the Hotline—”
“We don’t meet with clients through the Hotline, Al. You know that. It’s against the rules.” She stressed the word and laughed and hiccupped, and now I laughed, too. One thing was certain: Bernie didn’t hold her liquor well.
“I know,” I said, still laughing, “but he needed help. More help than I could give him over the phone.”
“You could get in trouble for that. I’m being serious. It’s frowned upon, taking clients away from the Hotline.”
“I’m not taking any money.”
“Still, they would rather he spend his money on the phone, with experienced psychics. No offense, Al.”
“None taken,” I said, and stifled a smile.
Bernie truly thought that I wasn’t in her league. I was fairly new to the Psychic Hotline game, and she had been doing it for a number of years now.
“Be that as it may,” I said, “he wanted to meet me to see if I could help him further.”
“You should have asked me to come along, Al. You’re new to all of this, you could have, you know, made things worse.”
“Luckily,” I said, “I don’t think I did.”
“Luckily,” she said, shaking her head in a sort of big-sisterly way. “You newbies think you have all the answers. You should listen to us old-timers.”
“You’re younger than me,” I said.
She waved that off and accepted her new drink from the waitress. “You know what I mean. So, what did this guy need—wait, I know.”
“You do?” I asked.
“Of course. Geez, Al...who do you think you’re talking to? It’s me, Bernice Jepson, Psychic to the Stars.”
“Only one star, Bernie,” I said, “and it was the neighbor on Desperate Housewives.”
“But he lived on Wisteria Lane. Wisteria Lane, Allie Cat. The most famous lane, like, ever.”
“He didn’t live on it, he was an actor. And he was only on the show for two episodes—”
“But good enough to have been brought back for that second episode.” She shook her head sadly at me. “Anyway, let’s get back to your client.”
“Please.”
“He needed help looking for something,” said Bernie.
“Very good,” I said. Bernie was always pretty good at getting close to the very big picture, but that’s where any psychic skills she had trailed off into fantasy.
She nodded, pleased, and drank a lot from her mangorita. “He lost his car keys.”
“No.”
“His garage door opener?”
“How the heck would he lose a garage door opener?”
“I don’t know. But am I right?”
“No.”
“His cat?”
“No.”
“Dog?”
I thought about that. In fact, he had indeed lost his dog. “Kind of.”
“How do you kind of lose your dog?”
“It’s complicated,” I said.
Bernie drank more of her drink and as she did so, I saw something very, very unusual descend upon her. It was a bright ball of light that seemed to fall out of the ceiling, only to disappear down inside her shirt.
What the hell?
Bernie shivered a little and set down her drink. Although she had been glassy-eyed with alcohol, her eyes now looked clear and lucid. She reached out across the table and took my forearm. Her own were ice-cold to the touch. “Then let me uncomplicate things, child,” said Bernie in a voice that seemed raspier than her own, and older, too. “You find the dog and you find your answers.”