The first thing Julie noticed about Madame Marzetta’s was the dark and the smell. Deep purple variations on lava lamps were placed on fabric-covered tables along the front window. Fabric was draped down the walls and formed a curtain across the back of the claustrophobic waiting room. Pillows topped a cushioned bench along one wall.
And it all was cloaked in a heavy, earthy incense.
As they stood in the tiny waiting room, the curtains across the back parted in a wave of paisleys. A remarkable being stood in the opening, arms outstretched like a Wagnerian soprano, but actually merely holding the curtains apart.
She was swathed in deep purple, a sash of vibrant red encircling her waist. Ropes of beads hung from her neck, and a store’s worth of brass bangles jangled on her arms. An iridescent turban sat low on her forehead, an exotic feather arcing forward to create a shadow over her face.
It was all a bit much. But what the hell, it was vacation.
“Welcome to Madame Marzetta’s.”
She lowered her arms, setting off a noisy waterfall of bangles as the curtains fell behind her.
“Have you come for a reading?” The voice was contralto, deep, mysterious, and surely put on for effect.
Next to Julie, Kayla had picked up what appeared to be a price sheet and held it close to one of the purple lamps, attempting to read it. She let out a sigh, probably worried about how much this little escapade would cost them.
“We want to have our fortunes read,” Aggie volunteered.
“Tarot? Palms?” Madame Marzetta lowered her head and looked out from beneath what had to be false eyelashes, though it was hard to tell anything about her in the obscure light. “Crystal ball?”
“What do they cost?” Kayla asked.
“Sixty dollars for half an hour.”
Kayla put down the price list.
“For a group of three, twenty each.”
Julie rolled her eyes, but they all took out twenties and handed them to Madame Marzetta. The bills quickly disappeared into the folds of her robe.
“Come this way.” She turned in a dramatic display of fabric and, brushing away one side of the curtains, motioned them to come through. Aggie stepped boldly forward, followed by Kayla, then Julie.
The inner chamber was more fabric, obscurely lit from unseen sources and just as claustrophobic. A round table in the center of the room was covered by a shimmering cloth that glowed iridescent purple in the eerie lighting. It was surrounded by several straight-backed chairs and one “throne”—the first word that came to Julie’s mind—a heavily carved Victorian armchair that added a touch of horror to the otherwise exotic effect.
Madame Marzetta motioned them to sit in the chairs, gesturing Kayla to go to the far side, Julie in the middle, and Aggie to her left. They sat down, though Julie was wishing she could get a better look at the furnishings; they looked like they’d seen many years and very few cleanings.
Madame Marzetta ensconced herself in the “throne” across from them. It put her several inches higher than the others, and the light from above cast her features into mysterious shadows. It was very effective, and Julie couldn’t resist the shiver of anticipation that wormed its way into her rational thought.
“Now,” Marzetta intoned. She splayed her long, supple fingers over the tabletop; the globe that sat at the center of the table, and had been dark a second before, pulsed with a milky light.
Kayla and Aggie gasped in delighted awe. Julie frowned at it, wondering how she’d turned it on with her hands empty in front of them. A foot switch probably.
Madame Marzetta closed her eyes and her body began to sway. Her hands moved gracefully in the heavily incensed air. Circling and coming together as the globe turned from white to pink to aquamarine, finally settling on a dark burgundy.
Suddenly the fortune teller let out a huh sound that shattered the silence and made the three women jump.
The red color dissipated in the globe to be replaced by glittering silver particles. Like a snow globe, Julie thought. And very pretty, though Julie was determined not to be taken in. Then ruined it by thinking, Please, nothing scary, just give us the tall, dark stranger bit.
“You have been friends for a long time.”
A good guess, Julie thought.
“I see water, a stream perhaps. A cabin.”
Julie glanced up.
“A bucket of paint?”
“OMG!” Aggie exclaimed. “Girl Scout camp. I almost fell off the ladder and knocked the paint bucket off. It poured all over Julie and Kayla, who were holding the ladder steady. We were just talking about it.”
“I don’t think you’re supposed to give her clues,” Julie said, totally exasperated, except for a tiny niggle of doubt that asked, How did she know about the paint? It was such an odd and ancient fact for Madame Marzetta to have pulled up, even if she’d seen them in town, marked them as tourists who would probably come to have their fortunes told on a lark, gone to the trouble of finding out their names, and googled them. But what were the chances that she’d learned about the paint fiasco?
Madame Marzetta suddenly took on more interest. Not that Julie believed that she could really tell the future, or the past for that matter.
“Friends formed in youth can withstand the trials that befall us later in life.”
Was that a warning? Was something bad going to happen after all? Julie pushed the thought away and steeled herself not to fall under the spell of this exotic charlatan. It was just an ordinary platitude delivered with panache.
“What kind of trials?” Kayla asked.
Marzetta reached out as if she were going to touch the globe, but it suddenly lost its light, gray swirls of clouds filling the inside, then growing opaque, inert, and dark.
None of them moved or even breathed.
“The future is a mystery. As always. But this future . . . Now is not the time to rest.” She slowly shook her head, stretched her fingers, and placed her palms near her ears as if symbolically shutting out some sound she didn’t want to hear.
Julie didn’t hear anything. The room must be acoustically enhanced, because they could be on a deserted island for all the noise from the street she heard.
“Don’t move,” Madame Marzetta said, and swooped out of her chair. She stopped before a heavy cabinet that Julie hadn’t noticed in the shadows and came back with a deck of cards.
She was going all out. They should have checked the add-on prices. Julie had heard of these people charging hundreds of dollars for a reading. She shifted in her chair, but she had to admit Marzetta was putting on a pretty good show.
But Madame Marzetta seemed to have forgotten them as she spread the cards on the table before her, gathered them into a deck, and held them in her hands until Julie could swear they began to illuminate.
Holding the glowing cards in front of her, she turned her head first to Kayla, then to Aggie, then to Julie. Scoping them out? Reading their auras or something? Julie couldn’t even tell if she was actually looking at them; her eyes appeared as black crescents in the eerie light.
Slowly she turned over a card and placed it in front of Kayla. She nodded to herself as if what she saw was as she suspected. Julie and Aggie both craned their necks to see. Julie had seen tarot cards before, even had them read at a party. But this deck was unlike any she’d seen.
“Is this tarot?” Aggie asked.
“Shh.” Marzetta’s command was sharp and definitive.
Aggie’s eyes widened; Julie practically held her breath. Kayla was staring at the card so intently Julie wondered if Kayla was seeing something different from what she was seeing.
“Many responsibilities,” Marzetta intoned. “Do not rush.”
Kayla blinked.
“Trust in yourself, not someone else. All will be.”
Will be? Julie thought. Will be what? Fine? Well? A big fat riddle forever?
Marzetta turned to Aggie. Laid down a card. “It is time.”
“Time?” Aggie squeaked. “Time for what?”
“For what you truly want.”
Aggie’s eyes bugged. “You mean . . .”
Marzetta slid the card away from her and returned it to the stack. “I mean it is time.”
She turned to Julie. Tapped the deck of cards twice with a pointed fingernail. Turned a card over on the table. Looked at it for a long time without speaking, so long that Julie began to fidget. She looked at the card but couldn’t tell anything from the bird and tree portrayed there.
Marzetta took a deep breath. “You are not where you should be.”
No kidding, thought Julie. Was she so obvious in her dilemma? Feeling dissatisfied with her life but not knowing what to do about it.
“It isn’t here,” Marzetta said, as if she were answering Julie’s own question.
Julie looked up from the card, tried to see the fortune teller’s face, but her head was lowered as if she’d fallen asleep, the feather creating a curtain across her features.
“But it isn’t behind you.”
Julie had to fight the urge to turn around and look. Even though she was pretty sure Marzetta didn’t mean literally, it was a little spooky. What did she mean? She cautioned herself that this was the way they operated, saying something vague and leaving their victim to make up a story around it. Julie had just fallen into that trap.
Marzetta sucked in a long breath. “You must look elsewhere. And soon.”
Kayla and Aggie were both staring at Julie.
“Now,” said Marzetta with a flourish of hands and fabric. “Your half hour is finished. Heed the signs as you will, it is your choice.”
Perhaps, thought Julie, but her pronouncement sounded more like an enter-at-your-own-peril warning.
The girls hastily got up and slipped through the curtains into the waiting room, Marzetta hot on their heels, as if she couldn’t wait to get them away. Or just anxious to get on with her next paying customers?
Kayla and Aggie were already out on the sidewalk talking to two women who were looking in Marzetta’s window.
As Julie stepped past the fortune teller into the fading light, her eyes met Madame Marzetta’s. A momentary flash of recognition as the light fell across the woman’s face.
“You.”
“Me. Good evening, Julie.”
Madame Marzetta nodded and shut the door behind her.
“So she was worth it?” asked one of the newcomers.
“Yeah,” Aggie said. “She was.”
“Yeah,” Kayla added. “It was kind of scary what she knew.”
“Thanks.” The two women hurried inside.
The three of them walked down the sidewalk, each lost in her own thoughts, but for different reasons.
Madame Marzetta’s scam could have just been augmented by things Lucky might have told her. They were friends. But the “you must look elsewhere soon” had more ominous overtones.
For a friendly town it sure seemed like a lot of people wanted to get rid of her.
“She was so real,” Aggie said. “How did she know all that stuff about me? And the paint thing?”
“Did you tell Les about any of our childhood escapades?” Kayla asked.
“No. The past was the last thing on my mind. And I certainly wouldn’t share about me dumping paint on your heads. Do you think she read our minds? We were just talking about it in the car.”
“Of course not,” Julie said.
“Then how did she know?”
Kayla shrugged.
“Because Lucky must have mentioned it since he’s been here . . . for some reason,” Julie said. “Everyone in town seems to know who I am and they didn’t know we were coming. We didn’t even know we were coming.”
“And we forgot to ask about Uncle Lucky,” Aggie said.
“I don’t think she would have been helpful there.”
“Why not? Because he wasn’t with us?”
“Because she doesn’t want us to find him.”
Kayla and Aggie both stopped.
“That’s crazy,” Aggie said. “She doesn’t even know why we’re here.”
“Actually, she does. We met her yesterday. Only then she was wearing a linen dress and house shoes.”
“That was the woman in the house shoes?”
Julie nodded.
“She can be a housewife and have extrasensory perception,” Aggie said, her enthusiasm taking a nosedive.
“Sure,” Julie said.
“You think she’s a fake?”
Julie shrugged.
“But her message to me was so spot on,” Aggie said.
“That it was time?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, come on, Aggie. Time for what? It was so vague it could mean anything. Time to pay your rent? Get your hair cut?”
Aggie shook her head. “No, she knew.”
“Knew what?”
“Nothing, it’s just . . . just weird. What about you, Kayla? What did she mean ‘trust yourself’?”
“I don’t know, but . . . my ex is always behind on his child support, though he’s making plenty of money. My mother is determined to find me a new husband. My father thinks I should sell the house and move in with them so they can help with the grandchildren. They’re sweet, but God, no. My brother is trying to talk me into putting my savings, such as they are, with his investment firm. I’m torn, but I think Madame Marzetta’s right, it’s better to just trust myself.”
“See, she was right,” Aggie said.
Julie made a face. “Oh puh-lease.”
“What about what she said to you? I didn’t understand it at all.”
“Well, I did. She wants us—me in particular—out of here. I’m not where I should be. More like not where she wants me.”
“Where’s that?” Aggie asked.
“Away from here—and Lucky.”
Kayla huffed out a sigh. “It did sound that way, now that you mention it. But why?”
“Because I think she’s involved with whatever shady things are going on here. She wants us out of the way. She lives next door to Lucky. She said she’d been friends with him and my mom since their childhood in Asbury Park. That’s probably how she knew about the paint and stuff; she’s probably heard stories about us from him.”
“But still. She helped me,” Kayla said.
“Me, too,” said Aggie.
“Oh, she helped me, too,” Julie said. “But not in the way she meant. Because no way in hell am I going to leave Uncle Lucky to walk into this without backup.”
“We’re going to stay for the duration,” Kayla said.
“Yeah,” Aggie said, and grinned. “It’s time.”
Yeah, it was time. And first thing tomorrow morning, Julie was going to have a little tête-à-tête with Madame Marie “Marzetta” Simmons.
“Shall we hit Lucky’s for a nightcap?” Aggie suggested.
“Lucky’s isn’t the only bar in town,” Julie said.
“But it’s the only happening one,” Kayla said. “Come on, Jules, don’t be a party pooper.”
“You know me so well,” Julie said sourly. She did. Julie had never learned to party comfortably. “Oh, all right. Come on.”
They walked next to each other down the sidewalk and had to move over only once to let some other strollers pass. Julie could hear the music pulsing from Lucky’s before they turned into the drive. Amazing that it didn’t get a ticket for disturbing the peace.
Evidently it was fifties night at the bar. The beach crowd had been joined by an assortment of people of all ages in vintage dress that could only be a cross section of the town. Tables and chairs had been pushed to the sides or removed altogether, clearing a wide area of the wooden floor for dancing. The dance floor was packed, with additional waitresses skirting the gyrating couples to deliver their drinks safely to the tables beyond.
The outside area was just as crowded, so they ordered drinks at the bar and stood at the edge of the dance floor watching the couples.
It wasn’t long before a guy with a crew cut and sleeveless tee that read beach bum took the drink from Aggie’s hand and led her to the dance floor.
Kayla began talking to a couple on her other side, though it was impossible to carry on much of a conversation since they were standing in front of a speaker.
Julie sipped her drink and swayed a little to the music, trying to look nonchalant and wishing she could disappear.
Gradually she gave up any pretense of enjoying herself, finished her drink, and put it down on a nearby table that was monetarily empty. When she turned back, Kayla had disappeared. Julie looked around, finally spotted her out on the dance floor. Julie began to edge her way toward the exit.
A glass of white wine appeared before her downcast eyes.
She looked up to see Alex “Scatter” Martin smiling at her.
He said something she couldn’t hear.
“What?”
He took her elbow and pulled her out the door to the patio. “I said, ‘Not in a partying mood?’”
Julie shrugged. “Not my scene.”
“What is your scene?”
“Actually, I’m not sure I have one.”
The pounding music wound to a stop to be replaced by a slow ballad. He tilted his head.
Julie had a moment of panic. Surely he wasn’t going to ask her to dance. He was on the clock.
“Always a bridesmaid, never the bride?”
Well, that was a dash of reality. “I guess, now that you mention it. Something like that.”
He turned to her with popping eyes, an over-the-top expression that any other time would have made her laugh. “You want to be the bride?”
“No, well, not the bride, but not the extra person all the time.” Damn, why had she said that? Maybe because she’d already downed a third of the glass of wine he’d just handed her, just because he made her nervous.
“You could try harder.”
“I am.”
“No, you’re not. You have to put yourself out there.”
“I hate doing that. It seems so artificial.”
“Well, forget finding that here. We’re about as laid-back as you can get.”
“Really.” She gave him her best I-know-what-you’re-up-to look.
It didn’t faze him.
“Or you can learn to enjoy your own company.”
“I do. Besides, I have other things on my mind.”
“Not a multitasker?”
“Why are you so obnoxious?”
“Am I?”
“Yes.”
He grinned.
“I saw you last night,” she blurted out.
He gave her a look. “You and half the town. I was here until almost two closing up.”
“Until three.”
“Was it that late?” His tone was casual, but she hadn’t missed that split second of quiet, the telltale sign of guilt whether you were eight or thirtysomething.
She took a sip of wine, though it was more like a gulp for courage. She probably shouldn’t do this. If he was a crook, he might do anything. Except ask you to dance, idiot.
She plowed on. “I saw the van—in the alley. I don’t suppose you know who was driving it?”
The bartender made a dismissive gesture. “Lots of people use the alley. You said it was around three? What were you doing up? You don’t strike me as the type to stay out that late.”
“Don’t try to distract me.”
He cocked his head.
“I couldn’t sleep—I was worried about my uncle.”
“Well, now you don’t have to be worried anymore.”
“Who was driving the van?”
“I have no idea. Probably a fisherman coming home from trawling.”
“Driving with his lights off?”
He looked slowly down at her, grinned. “Maybe he has a bitchy wife.”
His smile was smug. So clever, but it didn’t fool her. Alex Martin’s eyes were as hard as obsidian. The sudden change sent a chill down her spine and she took an involuntary step away from him.
But she’d gone too far to back down. It was her duty to family, and part of her hoped it was something innocent that she had misperceived.
“An old man was driving; he stopped behind the bar. Someone came out the back door and unloaded whatever was in the van and dumped it in the bushes.”
“Oh, that.” He looked around.
At last, she thought.
“Trash,” he said. He made another show of looking around. Bent down close to her ear. “Look, we have a lot of off-the-book workers, everyone does, so don’t pass judgment. They need the work. And we pay decently. They’re usually supporting several family members with inadequate living arrangements. Sometimes they need a place to dump their garbage and are afraid to go to the dump for obvious reasons. You have to show ID to prove you’re a resident. So if they want to use our dumpster, we look the other way. It’s no big deal. Lucky doesn’t mind.”
She scrutinized his face. He was an awfully good liar, but he was lying. She was almost certain.
“You’re not going to turn us in to the environmental board, are you?” His smile was back to charming.
She could almost believe him, but that smile was just too good, too nonchalant. And she’d seen it before, the last time he’d been trying to snow her.
She took another step away from him.
His smile broadened.
She conjured up her most foreboding fourth-grade teacher look, hindered by one too many glasses of wine. “Garbage is one thing, but if you’re doing something illegal, like substituting cheap liquor, to cheat Uncle Lucky, I won’t stand for it.”
The ubiquitous, multi-duty smile faltered for a second, then snapped back in place. “You won’t? Glad to hear it. There’s hope for you yet.” He took the now empty glass out of her hand and walked away.
“What? You don’t know me,” she said, just as the music cranked up again. “And this isn’t about me,” she yelled.
He turned. “What? I can’t hear you.” And with another annoyingly cocky grin, he headed back to the bar.
Marie pulled off her turban and threw it on the kitchen table. “They came to get their fortunes told.”
“Julie?” Lucky closed the latest issue of Surfer magazine. “That’s promising.”
“Would you be serious?”
“I am serious. I wish . . . but this is not the time for wishes, is it?”
It never is with you, Marie thought.
“I did the best I could. Aggie, the vivacious one, was pretty easy to read, major aura, major stuff going on inside, not the obvious first impression.” It hadn’t been a surprise. The most “out there” people sometimes had the most to protect inside. “Kayla, the brunette, has children and is in a tough financial situation, or I missed my guess.”
“I didn’t think you ever guessed,” Lucky said.
“Huh. I’m second-guessing you all the time.”
“Come here.” He pulled her down to sit on his lap, which was never comfortable. He was all bone and sinew and muscle. But she humored him.
“I don’t guess. Just some people are easier to read than others. And in those cases, I do have to extrapolate.
“I made a few pertinent predictions on my initial readings, conjured up the story you told me about the camp paint disaster to add a little veracity to the session. It impressed the other two. Julie was not amused, so I drove it home with a little card turning, instilling the idea that they should leave. Told Julie her future wasn’t here.”
“Where is it?”
“Hell, I don’t know. You come back beaten to a pulp with the possibility of a drug lord on your tail, say you really need Julie out of the way in case the shit hits. I did what I could, wearing a damned turban and enough clanking bracelets to give me a headache.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not. And neither am I. I just don’t know what’s best to do.”
“Do you think you convinced her to leave?”
“I don’t know. She’s a hard nut to crack.”
Lucky sighed. “Like her mother. Who I could never face again if any harm were to come to her daughter.”
Marie sighed as well. “Besides, she remembered me from yesterday morning. That was a mistake. I shouldn’t have gone out when I saw her snooping around. But I was worried.” She perused his face. “Is it really as bad as that?”
“I hope not. But we all know that sometimes people get caught in the cross fire. It’s what we live. But innocent bystanders? Julie? No, I couldn’t bear it.”
“I know, love. Neither could I.”