Strong Spirits [Spirits 01] (3 page)

      
Without another word, Billy pushed his chair around and rolled out of the room. I turned and watched him go, my heart aching. Thanks to my work, we’d managed to get him one of those newfangled chairs with wheels big enough so that Billy could maneuver himself around without help. That was some kind of blessing, I guess, because he felt helpless enough without having to have an attendant push him every time he wanted to, say, go to the kitchen or, worse, the bathroom.

      
Not for the first time, I was glad America had climbed aboard the water wagon. I could envision poor Billy, bitter and incurable, turning to the bottle for escape. Life was hard enough for us already. We didn’t need the Demon Rum living with us, too. I worried a little about the morphine the doctor prescribed for him, but without the drug his pain was too great to bear. In other words, there wasn’t any happy solution to the Billy problem.

      
Poor Billy. Great God, but I felt sorry for him. Ruthlessly, I swallowed the tears swelling in my throat. I reminded myself that lots and lots of women were in a state similar to mine, with their husbands dead or crippled. I was fortunate, I told myself, because I had a skill I could use to earn a fair income.

      
Blast and heck, it was more than a “fair” income! Why, I’d bought a little bungalow on South Marengo Avenue for my family with my earnings. That was more than a lot of
men
could do, working at their so-called “normal” jobs. It hurt like fire that Billy didn’t appreciate me and how nobly I was contributing to the family’s welfare.

      
Father Frederick, the Episcopal priest who often visited Mrs. Kincaid and whom I’d met at her house, had told me to go easy on Billy because he felt diminished as a man. I could understand that and agreed with him, but it sure was hard not to be resentful sometimes.

      
I liked Father Frederick, and not only because he was a genuinely kind man who offered helpful advice, such as the above. He also never looked at me askance because of what I did. Some religious folks were scared of fortune tellers. Even more of them were of Billy’s opinion and considered what we did sinful. Although, in fairness, Billy’s criticism wasn’t based so much on religious belief as on bitterness.

      
But Father Frederick wasn’t like that. His soft brown eyes always appeared a little sad, as if he wished he could cure the world’s ills and knew he couldn’t. I understood that, all right. Shoot, I couldn’t even cure my own husband.

      
Darn, but life was hard sometimes.

# # #

      
The air outdoors was fresh and balmy, the spring evening cool and slightly breezy, and the San Gabriel Mountains loomed large to the north, evoking a majesty that those of us who bore the name Majesty couldn’t come close to projecting. The pure spring weather and the enchantingly sweet aroma of orange blossoms emanating from the tree growing beside the back porch went some way toward soothing my battered spirits.

      
Sometimes I picked sprigs from the orange tree and put them in a vase in the living room, even though the blossoms never lasted more than a day. The dark glossy leaves and the tiny ivory flowers, not to mention their intoxicating scent, cheered me in a way nothing else could, probably because they reminded me of my wedding and the days of our innocence, before the War had spoiled everything. I didn’t even mind dusting up the fallen blossoms every hour or so, although my mother complained about the mess.

      
I had gotten into the habit of telling the people who hired me that I fasted and meditated upon spiritual matters before a séance, but that was a lie. Or, rather, it was part of the job. The truth was that I went about doing whatever it was I was doing until it was time to leave for a séance. This day I paused on the back porch steps to inhale several gallons of orange-blossom-scented air and decided life was worth living for a little while longer, Billy or no Billy.

      
“Gee, Miss Desdemona, you look swell.”

      
This reverent comment was delivered in a tone of absolute adoration by Pudge Wilson, the neighbor’s kid. He was skinny as a rail and had more freckles than the Pasadena Fire Department’s resident Dalmatian. I don’t know why or when anybody’d thought to call him Pudge, but Pudge he’d always been, and Pudge he was. And bless his heart, he appreciated me, even when my own husband didn’t.

      
“Thanks, Pudge.” I gave him a gracious smile. I had learned to smile graciously as part of my trade. People seemed to be awed by gracious smiles delivered by ladies who conducted séances; don’t ask me why.

      
“That’s a real pretty dress.” Pudge had harnessed Brownie, the horse my dad had brought home from work one day several years before, to the pony cart. We had a dumpy little Model T Ford, also delivered by my father. It was one that had been given to him by some now-rich movie star who didn’t need it any longer, but I liked to exercise Brownie when I could. He didn’t appreciate my consideration, deeming exercise as akin to torture. Pudge, holding Brownie’s reins, stared at me as if he intended to fall on his knees and start worshiping at my feet any second.

      
“Thanks, Pudge.” I kept the gracious smile going as I handed him a nickel. Pudge was a nice kid.

      
He was also correct about my attire. I’d made the dress myself using the new, side-pedal White rotary sewing machine I’d bought for Ma, and it was a stunner—the dress, I mean. The sewing machine was, too, but I wasn’t wearing that. The gown was a long black silk number, and it tied at the side hip with glossy black-satin ribbons. It would have been straight, too, except that I had one or two bulges that marred its sleek lines. On the other hand, I was a woman, for the good Lord’s sake, and women were supposed to have those bulges, whether the prevailing fashion called for a “boyish slimness” in American women or not. Naturally, I bound my breasts, but that didn’t help a whole lot.

      
At any rate, where the dress tied at my hip, I’d sewn on a big, scalloped appliqué of shiny black beads and silk embroidery (also created by yours truly) that glimmered in the late evening sunlight. The effect would be truly dazzling by candlelight. Which, actually, was the whole point.

      
One red lamp with one candle burning inside was the only light I allowed during a séance. I was fortunate that the cranberry glass through which the candlelight glowed brought out the best in me.

      
My hair had darkened over the years from a bright coppery color to a darker, more sedate reddish chestnut. My skin, thanks to my mother strong-arming me into wearing sunbonnets all the time when I was a little kid, bore a few faded freckles, but no more than that. Those few I managed to hide with pale, pearly rice powder. I wore no lipstick, which gave me an interesting pallor. I’d developed a walk that was kind of like a waft, if you know what I mean, and which made people think of spirits even before the séance began.

      
Over the years, in fact, I’d polished my act to a high gloss. I was darned good at my job, which made Billy’s complaints and harangues that much harder to take.

      
Pudge removed his hat, as if he’d just remembered his manners. “Are you sure you don’t want me to drive you, Miss Desdemona?”

      
“No, thanks, Pudge. I don’t know how long I’ll be, and I don’t want you to stay up too late. You have to go to school tomorrow.”

      
He made a face, which made me laugh, which made for a distinct improvement in my mood. “I don’t mind,” he said in a pleading sort of voice.

      
It was nice to know that at least one male member of the human race appreciated me, even if he was only eight years old. “I’m afraid your mama would mind, though. Not to mention Miss West.” Miss West was Pudge’s teacher, and she was a true Tarter. I knew it for a certified fact, because she’d taught me when I was in the third grade, and I could still feel that ruler come down on my knuckles; I flexed my hands in remembrance. I’d been a lighthearted girl and not the best-disciplined student in the universe.

      
“Sorry, Pudge.” I chirped to Brownie, who grumbled once and started walking. I don’t know what Brownie would do if a real emergency occurred, since his pace was either slow or slower, except when he stopped walking altogether.

      
Fortunately, Mrs. Kincaid’s house wasn’t very far away from ours, geographically speaking. Socially, the Kincaids were about as far above my family as the stars were from the earth. Not to mention money-wise. She and her husband and daughter lived in the huge mansion her father had built on Orange Grove Boulevard, the street where the rich people lived. Lots of rich people lived in Pasadena, and not all of them lived on Orange Grove, but nobody who lived on Orange Grove wasn’t rich. They had a son, too, but he didn’t live with his parents.

      
I loved visiting the Kincaids’ mansion, and not only because one of my best friends worked there. While I was supposed to be either preparing myself for séances or taking tea afterwards, I absorbed my surroundings and pretended the house was mine. Fat chance. I might make a relatively good living, but I’d need to own a railroad or a gold mine or a South American country before I could have an estate like that.

      
Still, it was nice of Mrs. Kincaid not to treat me like a servant. After a séance she always asked me to stay and take tea with her friends. She even introduced me to everyone, and they all talked to me as if I were their equal. Which I was in the overall scheme of American life. But we all know that rich people are different from the rest of us, if only because they can buy stuff we can’t. The truth was that Mrs. Kincaid seemed a little in awe of me, as Pudge was. It might have been laughable if I didn’t appreciate it so much in both of them.

      
I drove the three-quarters of a mile to the Kincaid mansion, urging Brownie on with promises of sugar cubes and carrots. Brownie pretty much ignored everything but food, including motorcars and me. The first was a blessing since there were so many more of them on the streets by 1920 than there had been only a couple of years earlier, and the second didn’t bother me since he did what I wanted him to do anyhow. I haven’t met very many horses, but it seemed to me that Brownie was a particularly phlegmatic example of the species. He plodded on, looking like a horse who hated what he was doing but had no choice. Which might have been true, come to think of it.

      
Brownie perked up when we approached the huge iron gate in the huge iron fence surrounding the Kincaid estate. He’d been there before, and he knew the Kincaids’ stable hands liked him and always gave him treats.

      
Jackson, the guardian of the gate, saw us coming and pressed the button that made the electrically operated gate open. It was an impressive sight, those massive black gates sliding apart—and doing so to admit
me
, of all unworthy objects.

      
The first time my family had used electricity was when I moved them into the house on Marengo. Until then we, like most people in Pasadena who weren’t living in mansions, used gas lighting and wood-burning stoves. Not to mention outhouses. It was still a thrill to sit in a bathtub, turn on the tap and feel that porcelain beauty fill up with warm water.

      
Back to the Kincaids. I hollered my thanks at Jackson, who nodded and grinned, his teeth gleaming like pearls in his mouth and his onyx face shining.

      
I liked Jackson. He was a friendly man, and he’d taught me lots of interesting things about spirits that most white people never learn. His family had come from the Caribbean where, I presume, they’d been slaves. He had all sorts of fascinating stories about Caribbean spirits, voodoo, zombies, casting spells and curses, and the like.

      
Jackson was only one of my sources. I’d garnered spiritual information from all sorts and varieties of people. I used every one of the tidbits people had related to me in my work (although I’d never sacrificed chickens, as Jackson claimed his kin sometimes did) which might be one of the reasons I was so successful. My brand of spirit-raising was unlike anybody else’s.

      
Brownie’s pace quickened marginally as he pulled the pony cart down the gigantic, deodar-lined drive to the back of the house and the stables. Most of the Kincaids’ horses had been replaced by several automobiles, but Harold, the Kincaids’ son, liked to play polo, so the Kincaids still kept a few horses. I fancied the Kincaid horses didn’t deign to speak to poor old Brownie, but Brownie was man enough or, more likely, cranky enough, to endure their slights.

      
Quincy and James, the stable hands, were ready for me. They both grinned, and Quincy tipped his hat while James helped me down from the cart. I’d gotten to know Quincy pretty well, because he and my friend Edie were in love with each other. That was my conclusion about their relationship, at any rate. Edie blushed every time I asked her about Quincy, and Quincy got tongue-tied every time I asked him about Edie. You figure it out.

      
The most interesting thing about Quincy, in my opinion, was that he’d been born in Nevada, and had worked as an honest-to-gosh cowboy on a ranch there until he moved to California. He’d come here because he wanted to become a cowboy star in the moving pictures, like William S. Hart. He’d worked in one picture, broken his leg, and that had ended his aspiring career. Boom. Just like that. Sort of like my Billy, although nowhere near as catastrophically. Still, it must have been a disappointment to poor Quincy, although he never let on. After the accident, unable to do the trick riding he’d learned as a boy, Quincy had quit on the pictures and had come to work at the Kincaids’.