Foods, Fools and a Dead Psychic, Maria Swan [reading list TXT] 📗

had recognized the drowned woman from the newspaper sketch and called the police. Apparently Miss Fortune was upset I wasn’t at her séance and had been asking if anyone saw me. And, truth be told, there was a message or two from her on my voice mail, but I didn’t check my phone until after my friend left. By then it didn’t matter. She was looking for a place to crash that night. Of course I feel like crap thinking maybe she would be alive if I had offered her shelter.”

I’m ashamed to confess that my first reaction was, see what happens when you sleep with a married man? And the amber eyes of Tristan Dumont winked in my mind’s eye.

“After talking to my neighbor, the detectives came to the office, well you know the rest.”

“Poor Miss Fortune, maybe she wanted to return your bra.”

Kassandra patted me on the knee. “Okay, complete truth, I was the one who told the detective about the bra. Wait, let me finish. They came in with one of the pamphlets from the fair, the one with the pics and bio of all the presenters. They also had a pic of the... you know, her... after they fished her from the water. I don’t know if it was planned or purely coincidental but they also had a photo of the bra. Stupid me, thinking I was being funny, said, ‘Oh, look at that, you came all the way here to return my bra?’ You can fill in the blanks. They didn’t take my word regarding Miss Fortune. They came to see if they could somehow place her at my condo the night she went missing. Fat chance. I told them to look at the cameras in the complex, and they’d see who I dragged home with me.”

She put her shoes back on, got up and started to clean up our paper plates. I was stunned.

“Aren’t you going to finish eating?” Kassandra asked.

I shook my head. Whoa. I just gobbled up a lifetime’s worth of bad karma... and I knew that in spite of Kassandra’s ‘I’m a badass’ attitude, she felt terribly guilty. I went to hug her; it felt awkward, her being that tall and busty and all. Christmas was just around the corner and we were both as lonely as could be. I could read it in her eyes.

“I’ve got an idea,” I said. “Tomorrow is Saturday. Can you come over to the house? I need to take the pictures for Christmas cards to send to Italy. Bring your bathing suit.”

“What? Bathing suit? It’s December. You nuts?”

“It’s 75 degrees out. It will melt the ice cubes in our drinks. I do this every December. I send photos of myself, lounging by the pool, drinking tall, colorful drinks with little umbrellas to make my family jealous, hoping they’ll decide to come and visit.”

“You’re a real Italian fruitcake, you know that? What time should I come over?”

FIVE

“DO THEY HAVE witches?”

Kassandra reapplied her bright red lipstick, and examined the straw hat I had handed to her. “Witches? What are you talking about?”

“You know, the people at the fair? The ones who tell the future.”

She shook her head, and the hat slid right off her shiny, cinnamon mane. “I don’t know where you get your information but psychics and witches have nothing in common. Aren’t you going to change?”

“I think I better go get Dior first.” I picked up the reindeer antlers headband I bought on sale at Walgreens. “What do you think? Cute?”

“You are putting that on the Great Dane? And he’s letting you?”

“I bribe him.” I shook the bag of organic jerky treats for dogs. “Needs to be done before Brenda gets back. He gets very rambunctious when she’s around, you know, like a teenager.”

“Is he going to jump in the pool? And splash us?”

“Kassandra, relax. Danes are afraid of water. Plus I’ve done this before. Let me grab the drinks and get this done. Brenda should be back soon; she promised us brunch.” I pulled the two plastic flutes with the tiny paper umbrellas from the refrigerator.

“What’s that? Wine?” Kassandra didn’t seem too convinced.

“It’s jelly.”

“Huh? Jelly? Fake drinks?”

“That’s the only way I could figure out how to get the umbrellas to stay put.” We walked to the pool, fake drinks in hand and Dior’s antlers and my Santa’s hat in a plastic bag. All Kassandra did was shake her head. I left her staring at the pool while I ran over to Brenda’s place to get Dior.

“We’ll need to take turns with the photos.” I explained. “I’ll take yours first, you and Dior on the lounge chairs, then I’ll trade with you.” I removed my shirt to show my bikini so Kassandra didn’t feel naked.

“Wait, wait,” she said, shocked. “Is that? You have a pierced navel?”

Kassandra sounded like she’d seen a monster popping out of my belly button. I instinctively covered the small zirconia with my hand. “It’s old. Happened when I first came to America. My first au pair job was in LA and everybody was doing it, the piercing I mean. I wanted to fit in.”

“Well, you’ll fit right in with the Energy Therapists. They believe that piercing the belly button aligns or improves function of the third chakra.”

“The third what?”

She laughed and shook her head fighting off Dior who slobbered over her arms, his way of showing interest. I pulled out my phone, pitched Dior a treat. He leaped for it and voilà, I had a terrific photo.

“Look.” I passed the phone to Kassandra.

“Hey, pretty neat. Your relatives will think we’ve been frolicking around all day. Are you going to Photoshop our suntan?” she teased.

I shrugged, moved the jelly-umbrellas drinks to the side and plopped myself on the chair next to her. “Okay, your turn, hey, Dior, stay away from the gate.”

Too late, he must have heard Brenda’s engine seconds before I did and was pushing up the lock with his nose like he had multiple times before. He took off galloping