Lost In Rewind (Audio Fools #3) (10 page)

“Why? Does she owe you money?” I snicker.

“No, she owes me an explanation. Did she leave a contact number when she left?” His question makes me want to laugh
and
cry—I choose to laugh. “This isn’t a joke, this is my life.” He briefly pauses as his voice cracks into a plea. “I drove for five hours to get here. You think this is funny?”

I shake my head. “No, it’s actually very sad. She died two months ago.” And now my smile does nothing to hold back the tears. I look away as I wipe my wet cheeks. I hear the guy with the dual-colored eyes laughing. “Is it funny to you that she died?”
What a pénis.

“No, it’s just funny that with my luck, I’m always a dollar short and a day late … well, in this case, I’m two months late. I waited over ten years to talk to her again, and when I finally got enough balls to come back and face her, she fucking dies. Perfect!” He’s still laughing maniacally, and I’d love to know what was so important that he drove five hours to come talk to some old fortuneteller?

“What did she say to you anyway? It obviously seems like a big deal.” I’m literally dying to know what propelled this man to come back to find her. He keeps turning around to the place he claims Joella used to sit. I always feel her presence when I come upstairs, but today more than ever.

“I think that old woman changed the course of my future. I’ve been clinging to her words from the day she uttered them. But she made a mistake. Everything she said was a lie—a horrible, vicious lie.” He takes another look at the empty place Joella once occupied and begins to walk away.

He’s midway down the stairs when I raise my voice and say, “She never made a mistake, and her tongue was too pure for lies.”

He stops, turns around, and looks up at me with a smirk. “You wouldn’t understand—you’re just a kid.” His tone has a sound of melancholic defeat.

The fighter in me needs to have the last word. I need to make this arrogant stranger, who doesn’t seem strange at all, know how great Joella was.

“I’m no kid, and trust me when I tell you that Joella Gitanos never opened her mouth unless she had a reason. She never took a dime for a reading, and as far as I know, only offered someone the future when their present depended on it.” I hate talking about her to someone who has no idea how gifted she was. I hate having to defend her legacy to some ignorant man. Why would she waste her time on him? People couldn’t beg her enough to grant them a reading if they weren’t part of her path. Maybe this guy is confused, delusional; perhaps he imagined a reading. Back in the day, I was told she chose to spend her days sitting at the top of these stairs—she said she had the perfect view, but nobody understood of what. The one thing I am certain about is that Joella Gitanos only gave readings to a chosen few, all of whom are long gone.

I look back into this man's eyes. I’ve never met anybody with two different eye colors—green and brown. I’m sure it would look odd, perhaps abnormal, on anybody else, but his eyes are fascinating and reluctantly they pull me in like magnets.

I suddenly have an unexplained craving to know everything behind them. I stand and stare in awe into eyes that silently promise chaos. They are not calm seas but turbulent oceans with storms brewing at their core. And I’ve already learned early on in life to stay as far away from any body of water, but I need to know exactly what my grand-mère said to him.

“
Bringin’ On The Heartbreak
” by Def Leppard

T
hat old woman knew nothing. Absolutely nothing. Every word was a lie. This college girl, the one who claims to own this joint, which I suspect is a lie, too, believes that the fortuneteller never made mistakes.
Ha!
Look at me—I am living, walking proof that all her predictions were a goddamn joke. What was I thinking? Did I really leave everybody behind and come here to confront some old hack and blame her instead of me for how my life turned out? I should’ve used my better judgment back then …
and
now. Isn’t that what I’m trained to do? What self-respecting attorney takes advice from a fucking fortuneteller? I pity this confused girl who obviously has some admiration for that dead old lady. I wonder what evidence she’s holding on to for her foolish convictions?

“I have a few hours before this place becomes a mad house. If you don’t have any plans, I’d like to maybe chat,” she hesitantly invites me, while avoiding my gaze.

“Chat?” I mock her. “About what, the quack who ruined my life?”

I feel my face jerk back before my brain can even process that this little bitch just slapped me,
hard
. I’m on the verge of being pissed, but I can’t help the smirk that takes hold of my lips. I mean come on, by the look on her face, she’s more shocked by her actions than I am, which makes this whole situation amusing. This little woman looks like a vicious child who is about to cry hysterically unless I defuse this situation. She nervously watches my lips in horror, still avoiding my eyes like the plague. I’m used to people evading my gaze, I’m aware that my condition freaks some individuals out. It’s not natural for someone to have one green eye and one brown, but this girl’s reaction is different. It’s interesting. I rub my left cheek and the tingling sensation only brings me back to Sara slapping me in the same spot six months ago. Everything can change in a heartbeat—six months ago, I lost my wife, and then I almost lost Sara. And now I’m wasting time with a confused young girl.

“She’s not a quack, you idiot.” Her shaking voice hisses out, dragging me back to our present encounter. “Fuck you, whoever you are. Get yourself out of my bar or I’ll call security.”

I hear a peculiar accent escape in her outburst, which I haven’t picked up on before. She finally gathers herself and looks up to meet my eyes with her dark, angry glare. It takes a split second for a chill to cover me. Where have I seen those eyes before?

It takes me another minute to collect myself and attempt to diffuse this train wreck. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. That old lady obviously means something to you, and shame on me—I had no right to badmouth her. I can only blame myself for having taken ill counsel from a total stranger.” I don’t like how every time I open my mouth, this kid gets angrier with me.

“Why are you so lost, sir?” Her question drips with ridicule. I hate her calling me
sir
, makes me feel ancient, which compared to her I probably am.

“I’m lost because everything I love, I lose. I thought I knew how my life would play out … but I know nothing.” I’m not sure why I feel the need to explain my worthless existence to this girl. Perhaps I feel like a dirt-bag for coming off heartless regarding the death of that old fortuneteller who once worked here.

“You can’t be mad at my grand-mère just because you can’t appreciate what she knew. You have no idea how lucky you are if she actually chose to speak to you. You may be the last person who ever got a reading from her.” Her eyes become misty again, and she scrunches her nose to hold back tears, I suspect. I took French in high school, and I’m quite certain this girl just called the old woman her grandma. And now I officially feel like the world’s biggest douche for saying what I fucking said about this poor girl’s dead grandmother.

“I’m very sorry for your loss. Please disregard everything I said before. My name is Jeff, by the way. Again, don’t pay any attention to anything I’ve said. I’m sure she was a great woman.” I feel like I’m tracking up shit creek without a paddle here. I’m usually not this callous with my words, but everything that I’ve had to endure in the past six months has fucked me up for life. This is not like me.

She has a hard time looking directly at me, which only makes me want her to look at me that much more. She tensely places both hands in the back pockets of her jeans, and without looking up at me, says, “You can call me Kali,” in a half whisper.

“Hi, Kali. It’s very nice to meet you. I’m sorry for being a dick. I really believed I’d just walk right in here and find her sitting at the top of these stairs, as if time stood still. I’m delusional. Time waits for no one.” Which is the truth. I tried, I failed, time to go back home. I take another look at the place I remember that alluring gypsy fortuneteller once occupied and wish that I could make her take back all her words. What if she never unleashed her prophecy? What kind of life would I have had if those words didn’t float around in the universe? I take a deep, exacerbating breath, allowing myself to finally acknowledge how tired and hungry I am. I drove all night to get here. Put a gun to my head, and I couldn’t tell someone what finally made me decide to come all this way after all these years. Maybe I was possessed, or maybe just desperate. I thought, I really thought that if I came back to where it all started, to the place where I accepted a promised future from a total stranger, and in return disregarded the consequences of my present actions, then maybe my life would finally make sense.

“You hungry?” Kali’s voice brings me back before I let my mind dwell in the past again. I long to go back to when it was all simple. “I’ll feed you and maybe you’ll be less of a dick,” she declares with a smirk.

I nod, thankful for her not calling security. I drove for hours to get some answers from a dead fortuneteller, and instead, I’ve managed to royally offend her poor granddaughter. Dinner and conversation are more than I deserve.

“Sounds good, but I’d like to treat you for dinner. I owe you at least that,” I propose, stretching my hand out for a truce.

She first looks at my hand, and then finally up at my face and nods, keeping both hands in her back pockets. Her eyes have cleared up a bit, no longer black. She’s not ready to touch the asshole who called her grandmother a quack, and I can’t say I blame her.

I nod back, accepting her hand snob declaration and then obediently head down the stairs behind her.

“
Always Something There To Remind Me
” By Naked Eyes

I
haven’t been this emotional about the passing of Joella since her funeral two months ago. But this man coming here and mentioning her reminds me of how quickly things get taken away from me—first my maman, and now my grand-mère. I wish I had more hours with both of them. I wish Joella hadn’t abandoned me so soon after we found one another. I mean, I only found out about her after my maman’s accident. I had no reason to believe that a woman named Joella Gitanos residing in Providence, Rhode Island was my grand-mère. My maman, may she rest in peace, never mentioned her roots or that she had family left in America. She told me she was an orphan, for the love of God. Who knew that I had gypsy blood running though my veins? During my maman’s wake, I recall a statuesque older woman walking into our little church in Cassis. The same church my parents were married in and where I was baptized. I felt her presence before anyone actually noticed her sitting in the back row. I sensed her the moment she came in, and our eyes immediately locked in a baffling recognition. My papa turned around to see who I kept looking at, and once he spotted her sitting in the back, he stood up abruptly and left without a single word.