Dianna Agbala stepped out onto her porch and looked up and down the street.
Ten thousand birds were singing in the trees, most of them hidden by rioting autumn leaves. The sound made her smile.
She wore an oversize sweater that hung nearly to the knees of her black tights. It was ugly, but it was thick and warm and an old friend. Her dark hair was still up in a lazy bun and she wore no makeup. Her shift at the store didn’t start until that afternoon and there was nothing at all on her schedule until then. She needed the downtime, too, because yesterday was such a freaky day. Losing nearly an hour and forgetting nearly every detail about a customer worried her. Ophelia had tried to laugh it off, but it wasn’t funny. It was scary. Dementia ran in her family, and although her mother and grandfather each got it in their seventies and she was only halfway there, the thought was terrifying. To lose one’s mind? To have memories carved out of one’s mind and discarded forever was obscene.
She sat down on the rocker and pulled the sweater tight.
People don’t just lose an hour of their day. Sure, maybe after a concussion or some kind of bad shock, but not during an ordinary workday. Dianna had spent a lot of time last night thinking it through. She was too weirded out to go deep on the subject with Ophelia. First, Ophelia was her boss and second, they were friendly, but not true confidants. And this felt confidential. She wanted to talk with someone, to get out of her own thoughts, but … who?
The name Val Guthrie-Crow floated into her mind. Val was a friend, but mostly she was a customer. A semi-regular who came in for readings when the store was likely to be empty or slow. Val ran the biggest farm in town, was married to the chief of police and the adoptive mother of the senior patrol officer, Mike. By every Pine Deep metric she was solid, normal, practical, and grounded. And yet, Dianna knew Val had a spiritual side. Where once she’d been strictly Christian, since the Trouble Val had become more open-minded, and to a surprising number of things. Everything from energy portals in the forest to ghosts. And that was a crucial thing for Val: reinforcing her belief that death was not the end, but merely a doorway. Val and her husband had lost two of their four children. The youngest two. A brain tumor had taken the youngest before his first birthday, and the little girl had been consumed by leukemia ten months later. Not recent deaths, but the distance between that kind of loss and any true healing was measured in light-years.
Dianna was not a channeler, and was not able to actually speak to the spirits of the dead children … but she could feel them. She caught glimpses of them surrounded by light. When Dianna was down very deep in the middle of a reading for Val, she sometimes saw the two little tattoos that were hidden on Val’s chest—a ladybug and a lightning bug—glow with golden fire. They were the symbols of the little ones, and Val never showed them to anyone. Val was a modest woman who usually wore T-shirts under her work shirts. No cleavage, no tattoos. Only her husband ever saw them.
Would Val be open to a conversation about losing an hour of time? Or would she measure that against what she’d lost and turn away? Dianna had a lot of respect for Val, but grief warped everything.
A big crow came and landed on the far end of the porch rail. She recognized her as one of the mated pair who lived in the oak tree separating Dianna’s yard from her neighbor, Mrs. Sandoval. The bird was old, though, and her feathers bedraggled by age and last night’s storm. The bird cocked her head and cawed very softly.
And just that fast Dianna had a flash image in her mind. Not of Val, or Ophelia, or anyone else she knew. The image was of a very pretty woman about her own age, with long dark hair. A woman with a lovely face but haunted eyes. Trying on five-pocket skinny jeans in a stretch fabric with back yoke stitching, at Get Real.
Dianna smiled at the unbidden memory. She’d complimented the stranger on the way those jeans fit. A bold move on her part, because her comment had been phrased and inflected to be flirty and the woman had a wedding ring. Not that a ring made her straight, but she had the look of straight. Like she belonged to the PTA, went to church on Sundays, threw parties for everyone’s birthday, knew how to make every kind of cocktail at home, and had a husband who didn’t know whom he was sharing a life with. A lot of assumptions, sure, but Dianna was, after all, a psychic. Said so in neon at the store.
Why had she said something to the woman trying on the jeans? Gaydar was mostly a myth, especially with all of the many, many ways in which sexuality manifested. Usually gaydar was good for spotting the more deliberately dramatic queers. The ones who want to be spotted easily and accepted on their own terms. But, truthfully, there wasn’t a “gay look.” There wasn’t even always a vibe.
Unless, of course, you were psychic.
Dianna smiled at the thought.
Had the woman bought those jeans? And, if so, could Jennifer at Get Real be convinced to share that information? Dianna looked at the lady crow, who bobbed her head as if nodding encouragement.
“Nice,” she said aloud and decided to stop at the clothing shop and ask. The decision felt good. Felt right. The day even contrived to look a bit brighter.